On 2021-01-16 at 17:46:13 -0500,
DonK <don81...@comcast.net.invalid> wrote:
> On Sat, 16 Jan 2021 14:56:37 -0600, 2qdxy4rzwzuui...@potatochowder.com
> wrote:
>
> >On 2021-01-16 at 15:42:44 -0500,
> >DonK <don81...@comcast.net.invalid> wrote:
> >> For example, I've found a need to parse text documents quite a number
> >> of times over the years. Basic/VB is great at doing that. How's
> >> Python?
>
> >
> >Python can do that. Can you expand on "parse" and "text documents"?
>
> There's nothing that I have any particular need for at the moment but
> it is something that I've done a number of times over the years. I
> think it's a common need??
Indeed. :-) In my experience, "parse" and "text documents" often mean
different things to different people.
> I've used Pascal and BASIC\VB for string parsing and BASIC\VB is much
> better. VB has all the string handling functions that you need built
> in but, for example, Pascal has some but you have to create others to
> be useful. Since I'm just beginning with Python I have no knowledge or
> criticism of how Python does this but I'm sure that it can.
>
> Since I've retired I've written parsers for my bank records, medical
> records and other personally useful things. I would categorize them as
> trivial but useful. i.e utility means useful
>
> When I was working, in the 1999-2001 range, I wrote a parser in VB
> that unscrambled corrupted "batch files" for credit card processing so
> that vendors didn't have to spend hours rebuilding them by hand. Some
> of those files had over 700 credit card transactions in them. That's
> one example.
Sounds like you're parsing files composed of lines of plain text where
each line represents some kind of record (as opposed to parsing a
document containing programming code as a precursor to generating an
executable, or looking through a word processing document for something
important).
A bare minimum skeleton might look something like this:
with open(filename) as f:
for line in f.readlines():
handle_one_line(f)
Python has a capable string type for handling text; see
<https://docs.python.org/3/library/string.html>.
Or look into the fileinput module for a convenient way to run through a
collection of files and/or standard input.
> I'm looking forward to learning some Python, mostly for fun, but I'm
> sure that it will also be useful.
Absolutely! :-)
Happy Hacking!
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