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ReadList with mixed strings and numbers

  • To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
  • Subject: [mg34813] ReadList with mixed strings and numbers
  • From: Goyder Dr HGD <H.Goyder at rmcs.cranfield.ac.uk>
  • Date: Sat, 8 Jun 2002 05:21:23 -0400 (EDT)
  • Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com

A data capture system gives me an ASCII file which I wish to read into
Mathematica for analysis.
The file contains strings of useful information, such as date and time of
capture and sample rate, followed by data pairs, as approximate numbers in
"E" format. The numbers are followed by more strings and then more
numbers...
What I would like to do is to use a sequence of ReadLists as follows

str=OpenRead["filename"];
h1=ReadList[str,String,n1];
d1=ReadList[str,{Number,Number},n2];
h2=ReadList[str,String,n3];
d2=ReadList[str,{Number,Number},n4];
...

however I do not know the size of n1, n2, n3, n4... so I can't do the above.

I can do 
str=OpenRead["filename"];
a=ReadList[str,String];
Close[str]

and read everything as a String. I then have to sort out the strings into
strings and numbers which I attempt to do using 


h = {}; d = {};
Do[If[t = Read[StringToStream[a[[i]]], {Number, Number}];
NumberQ[t[[1]]] == True, AppendTo[d, t], AppendTo[h, a[[i]]]], 
{i,Length[a]}]


which works but gives me warning messages and may not be foolproof.

Is there a recommended method for reading data which consists of mixed
strings and numbers so that the numbers get recognised as numbers and the
strings as strings?


Thanks 
Hugh Goyder



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