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Re: Re: Reading csv with ;

• To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
• Subject: [mg99632] Re: [mg99613] Re: Reading csv with ;
• From: George Woodrow III <georgevw3 at mac.com>
• Date: Sun, 10 May 2009 05:13:08 -0400 (EDT)
• References: <200905090721.DAA00012@smc.vnet.net>

Quite right. IF you know what to look for, the Documentation Center  
points you to the Option "Table", and on that page you will find an  
example that uses FieldSeparators.

My mini-rant has to do with finding the right thing to do when you  
don't already have some idea of the answer. In this example, I would  
imagine that someone would think: "I have some data to import that is  
just like CSV, except the commas are semicolons. What would I do?" It  
is not obvious to me that you would use the "Table" option in Import,  
and further have to use the "FieldSeparators" option as a sub-option  
to "Table".

The task is something a beginner might need to do. There should be a  
documented example that shows how to do it that is more accessible,and  
there should be a page for field separators (as plain English words)  
that would have a tutorial about importing text or ASCII data with  
different formats.

If I had the time, I might be inclined to write a documentation page  
using the still unreleased DocTools and find a way to add it on to the  
standard documentation. I imagine there could be a whole cottage  
industry filling the gaps in the official documentation.

george woodrow


On May 9, 2009, at 3:21 AM, Bill Rowe wrote:

> On 5/7/09 at 6:34 AM, georgevw3 at mac.com (George Woodrow III) wrote:
>
>> In version 7, the option appears only on the page for Table, and
>> then only in the examples. At least that is what a search in the
>> Documentation Center gives. Also it is the only place that a Google
>> search gives for the on-line version of the Version 7 documentation.
>> Spotlight does not find anything in Mathematica -- perhaps the
>> plug-in is broken.
>
> If I type either "FieldSeparators" or FieldSeparators into the
> Documentation search field and hit retrun, I get a result with
> one entry linking to the documentation page.
>
> And if I type FieldSeparator I get the same link and a message
> asking if I meant fieldseparators.
>
> All of this is using
>
> In[4]:= $Version
>
> Out[4]= 7.0 for Mac OS X x86 (64-bit) (February 19, 2009)
>
>
>

• References:
  • Re: Reading csv with ;
    • From: Bill Rowe <readnews@sbcglobal.net>