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Re: Re: Re: Re: Bug in Import?


Saying it's a failure of documentation implies there's a benign explanation. If you can't suggest one, why do you think so? (Anyway, the documentation in this case effectively IS a bug.)

Meanwhile, it's a fact that two identical records are imported differently, and it's hard to imagine (in my opinion) a good reason for that.

It's not just DAT, either. Exactly the same thing happens with the CSV, TSV, and Table formats.

Bobby

On Fri, 4 Mar 2005 05:07:32 -0500 (EST), Murray Eisenberg <murray at math.umass.edu> wrote:

> _I_ cannot discern what that behavior is; that's why the documentation
> would be desirable!  All I can really infer so far from the experiments
> is that .dat files are not, by default treated as text.
>
> That the two records of the test .dat file give different results when
> imported with the default behavior may or may not be a bug.  I don't
> know what the format expected of a .dat file is.
>
>
> DrBob wrote:
>>>> Rather than a bug, the behavior originally cited would seem to
>>>> be a failure of the documentation to describe the default behavior
>>>> of Import when the file extension is ".dat".
>>
>>
>> Then describe it, please, so this behavior makes sense.
>>
>> Bobby
>>
>> On Wed, 2 Mar 2005 01:26:43 -0500 (EST), Murray Eisenberg
>> <murray at math.umass.edu> wrote:
>>
>>> Here's what I get:
>>>
>>>     $Version
>>> 5.1 for Microsoft Windows (October 25, 2004)
>>>
>>>     Export["test.dat", {{"2005-01-24", "2005-02-14"},
>>>     {"2005-01-24", "2005-02-14"}}];
>>>
>>>     Import["test.dat", "Text"] // InputForm
>>> "2005-01-24   2005-02-14\n2005-01-24   2005-02-14"
>>>
>>>     Import["test.dat"]
>>> {{"2005-01-24", "2005-02-14"}, {2005, -1, -24, 2005,
>>>     -2, -14}}
>>>
>>> Rather than a bug, the behavior originally cited would seem to be a
>>> failure of the documentation to describe the default behavior of Import
>>> when the file extension is ".dat".
>>>
>>>
>>> meznaric wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hm, this seems strange. I am using 4.1 and what happens is this:
>>>>
>>>> Export["R:\\test.dat",
>>>> {{"2005-01-24", "2005-02-14"},
>>>> { "2005-01-24", "2005-02-14"}}]
>>>>
>>>> Import["R:\\test.dat"]
>>>> {{1980, 1989}, {1980, 1989}}
>>>>
>>>> !! R:\\test.dat
>>>> 2005-01-24   2005-02-14
>>>> 2005-01-24   2005-02-14
>>>>
>>>> In the Import case Mathematica seems to have actually evaluated those
>>>> cells as if they hadn't been strings, but integers.
>>>>
>>>> In your case, it certainly seems to be a bug, though. How can two
>>>> identical list parts be exported/imported in a different way?
>>>>
>>>> Regards,
>>>> Sebastjan Meznaric
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>



-- 
DrBob at bigfoot.com
www.eclecticdreams.net


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