[Tutor] Suggestions Please

[Phillip Pugh]

Thank you All!!  

I am impressed with the support. It was very helpful and timely.  I was able to put together a script to do what I wanted. I know now that I wont be wasting time learning Python.  As with any language, it is about understanding the syntax. As I mentioned before, I want to make sure I am focusing my time on something useful and this was a big help.  

Here is what I came up with (with your help) . I expect there is a more efficient way to do it, but hey... it was my first try with data.  And FYI, I work with over one hundred data sources, I wanted to test on something small.

Phillip 


with open("InputTest.txt","r") as f:
    with open("Outputt.txt", "w") as fw:  
        for line in f:
            first,second = line[:32], line[32:37]
       
            if first.isspace()== False:
                fw.write (second.strip()+ first.strip()+"\n")    
 
f.close()
fw.close()




On Oct 7, 2014, at 4:39 AM, Alan Gauld <alan.gauld at btinternet.com> wrote:

> On 06/10/14 23:42, Phillip Pugh wrote:
>> I am trying to decide if Python is the right toolset for me.
> > I do a lot of data analytics.
> 
> It can almost certainly do what you want but there may be other
> tools that do it better. However, data analytics is quite vague.
> It depends on what kind of data and what kind of analysis.
> 
> > Can you point me to a really good, intuitive resource
> 
> intuitive depends on the student.
> But we also need to know what kind of data.
> Is it stored in flat files?
> in a SQL database(which one?)
> In a NoSQL database(which one?)
> Python can handle all of those but the tutorials involved
> will all be different.
> 
> If you want a general introduction with some SQL database
> specifics you can try my tutorial(see sig). Whether you
> find it intuitive is another matter.
> 
>> I have one text file that is 500,000 + records..
> 
> Thats not very big in modern computing terms.
> You could probably just read that straight into memory.
> 
>> I need to read the file,
> 
> What kind of file? A database file such as Foxpro?
> or Access? or a CSV export? Or something else?
> 
>> move "structured" data around and then write it to a new file.
> 
> What is structured about it? Fixed column width?
> Fixed relative position? Binary format?
> 
>> The txt file has several data elements and is
> > 300 characters per line.
> 
>> I am only interested in the first two fields.
> > The first data element is 19 characters.
> > The second data element is 6 characters.
> 
> There are two ways in Python to extract 'columns' from a file.
> 
> If you know the separators you can use either the csv module(best)
> or string.split(<sep list>) to create a list of fields.
> 
> If its a fixed length record (with potentially no seperator)
> you can use string slicing. In your case that would be
> field1 = string[:19]; field2 = string[19:25]
> 
>> I want to rearrange the data by moving the 6 characters data
> > in front of the 19 characters data
> 
> Do you need a separator?
> 
>> and then write the 25 character data to a new file.
> 
> the reading and writing of the files is straightforward, any tutorial will show you that.
> 
>> I have spent some time digging for the correct resource,
> > However being new to Python and the syntax for the language
> > makes it slow going.  I would like to see if I can speed up
> > the learning curve.
> 
> So far it sounds like you don't need any of the high powered data analysis tools like R or Pandas, you are just doing basic data extraction and manipulation. For that standard Python should
> be fine and most tutorials include all you need.
> 
> If you look at mine the most relevant topics from the contents
> are:
> The raw materials - variables & data types
> Looping  - basic loops in Python
> Branching - basic selection in python
> Handling Files - files
> Handling Text - text
> 
> and possibly
> Working with Databases - using SQL in Python
> 
> You probably should read the CSV module documentation too.
> I suspect it will do a lot of what you want.
> 
> HTH
> -- 
> Alan G
> Author of the Learn to Program web site
> http://www.alan-g.me.uk/
> http://www.flickr.com/photos/alangauldphotos
> 
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