[Tutor] Parsing large files

[Rick Pasotto]

On Fri, Feb 06, 2004 at 12:33:10PM -0500, Andrew Eidson wrote:
> I have a text file that is tab delimited.. it has 321 columns with
> over 1000 rows.. I need to parse this out to 2 text files with roughly
> half the columns and the same number of rows. Just looking on some
> guidance on the best way of doing this (been working on a GUI so much
> lately my brain is toast)

Why does it matter how many columns there are? Are you rearranging them
or using a subset? If not just write the first 500 lines to one file and
then the rest to another. The unix 'split' command will do this.

Don't make things more complicated than necessary.

-- 
"All progress is based upon the universal innate desire
 on the part of every organism to live beyond its income."
		-- Samuel Butler  *KH*
    Rick Pasotto    rick at niof.net    http://www.niof.net