CODEWITHSUNDEEP
pythonnumpydata-files
Jacob Hermann Olesen
Jacob Hermann Olesen

Reputation: 17

Loading data file with too many commas in Python

I am trying to collect some data from a .txt file into my python script. The problem is that when the data was collected, it could not collect data in one of the columns, which has given me more commas than normally. It looks like this:

0,0,,-2235
1,100,,-2209
2,200,,-2209

All I want is to load the data and remove the commas but when I try with numpy.loadtxt it gives me a value error. What do I do?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 253

Answers (3)

dragon2fly
dragon2fly

Reputation: 2419

You can use regular expression module to split

In[1]: import re
In[2]: re.split(',,|,', '0,0,,-2235 1,100,,-2209 2,200,,-2209')
Out[2]: ['0', '0', '-2235 1', '100', '-2209 2', '200', '-2209']

',,|,' means it firstly splits at ,, and then in the result, it continues to split at ,.

So if you want to get -2235 and 1 instead of -2235 1 you can use ',,|,| ' or ',,|,|\s' to ease the eyes (\s means space).

Upvotes: 1

cyram
cyram

Reputation: 840

It really depends on what you're trying to do. I'd need to see a code example to see what you're trying to do really. You could just replace the double comma with a single one

inputstr = "0,0,,-2235 1,100,,-2209 2,200,,-2209"
inputstr = inputstr.replace(",,",",")

Or, if you don't want to lose the position of the data in the string, maybe replace the double commas with a null value of sorts

inputstr = "0,0,,-2235 1,100,,-2209 2,200,,-2209"
inputstr = inputstr.replace(",,",",0,")

The key thing is that you don't want to corrupt the data, and introduce values that shouldn't be there. It really is about what the data means and what you're trying to do.

Upvotes: 1

ShellFish
ShellFish

Reputation: 4551

I don't know if this is an option but you could pre-process it using tr -s ',' file.txt. This is a shell command so you'd have to do it either before calling python or using system. The latter might not be the best way since dragon2fly solved the issue using a python function.

Upvotes: 0

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