working with delimited files

working with delimited files

[Sivaram Neelakantan]

I sometimes work with files looking like this

BEL EQ 13-Jan-2006 978.85 988.9 1050 983 1025 1024.5 1025.94 276666 2838.429191
BEL EQ 16-Jan-2006 1024.5 1030 1043 1001.5 1003.5 1008.65 1027.02 72409 743.655
BEL EQ 17-Jan-2006 1008.65 1010 1030 985.1 993.75 989.95 1013.83 102589 1040.07
BEL EQ 18-Jan-2006 989.95 984 1006.8 963.6 1002.15 999.45 990.75 94266 933.9413

When I have a few thousand rows like this, this becomes difficult to
read, so I tend to

a) M-x org-mode
b) C-x h followed by C-c |

This makes it easier to read as you can see below
| BEL | EQ | 02-Jan-2006 |  993.15 |     998 |    1001 |     983 |..
| BEL | EQ | 03-Jan-2006 |  989.05 |   999.5 |    1000 |   989.9 |..
| BEL | EQ | 04-Jan-2006 |  994.35 |     998 |    1014 |  986.15 |..

How do I use the overlay for editing but keep the underlying file
structure?  If I do an C-C C-e, I get unnecessary headers and the
fields are tabbed out and I have to save it as a different
file. Ideally, I'd like to keep the file structure as it is and just
use org-mode to provide viewing structure while editing.


 sivaram
 -- 

working with delimited files

[Sivaram Neelakantan]

I sometimes work with files looking like this

BEL EQ 13-Jan-2006 978.85 988.9 1050 983 1025 1024.5 1025.94 276666 2838.429191
BEL EQ 16-Jan-2006 1024.5 1030 1043 1001.5 1003.5 1008.65 1027.02 72409 743.655
BEL EQ 17-Jan-2006 1008.65 1010 1030 985.1 993.75 989.95 1013.83 102589 1040.07
BEL EQ 18-Jan-2006 989.95 984 1006.8 963.6 1002.15 999.45 990.75 94266 933.9413

When I have a few thousand rows like this, this becomes difficult to
read, so I tend to

a) M-x org-mode
b) C-x h followed by C-c |

This makes it easier to read as you can see below
| BEL | EQ | 02-Jan-2006 |  993.15 |     998 |    1001 |     983 |..
| BEL | EQ | 03-Jan-2006 |  989.05 |   999.5 |    1000 |   989.9 |..
| BEL | EQ | 04-Jan-2006 |  994.35 |     998 |    1014 |  986.15 |..

How do I use the overlay for editing but keep the underlying file
structure?  If I do an C-C C-e, I get unnecessary headers and the
fields are tabbed out and I have to save it as a different
file. Ideally, I'd like to keep the file structure as it is and just
use org-mode to provide viewing structure while editing.


 sivaram
 -- 

Re: working with delimited files

[Bastien]

Hi Sivaram,

Sivaram Neelakantan <nsivaram.net@gmail.com> writes:

> This makes it easier to read as you can see below
> | BEL | EQ | 02-Jan-2006 |  993.15 |     998 |    1001 |     983 |..
> | BEL | EQ | 03-Jan-2006 |  989.05 |   999.5 |    1000 |   989.9 |..
> | BEL | EQ | 04-Jan-2006 |  994.35 |     998 |    1014 |  986.15 |..
>
> How do I use the overlay for editing but keep the underlying file
> structure?  

I can see a solution where you could add an overlay to display the table
(say, with C-u C-c |, for example) but you won't be able to *edit*.

Would that be something you (and others) would find useful?

-- 
 Bastien

Re: working with delimited files

[Rainer M Krug]

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On Fri, Jul 8, 2011 at 10:12 AM, Bastien <bzg@altern.org> wrote:

> Hi Sivaram,
>
> Sivaram Neelakantan <nsivaram.net@gmail.com> writes:
>
> > This makes it easier to read as you can see below
> > | BEL | EQ | 02-Jan-2006 |  993.15 |     998 |    1001 |     983 |..
> > | BEL | EQ | 03-Jan-2006 |  989.05 |   999.5 |    1000 |   989.9 |..
> > | BEL | EQ | 04-Jan-2006 |  994.35 |     998 |    1014 |  986.15 |..
> >
> > How do I use the overlay for editing but keep the underlying file
> > structure?
>
> I can see a solution where you could add an overlay to display the table
> (say, with C-u C-c |, for example) but you won't be able to *edit*.
>
> Would that be something you (and others) would find useful?
>

Definitely useful -  a read-only viewer of delimited files, would be a
useful feature (and sometimes safer then an editor) which I would use
regularly.

But a really nice feature would be to be able to open a delimited file as a
table, then being able to edit it using all the usual org features for
tables, and being able to export the table to the delimited format again,
while at the same time being able to save the org file. So there would be
two aspects:

1) import delimited file into org-table
2) export of table into delimited format

Both in itself would be very useful, but together they would be brilliant.

Rainer



> --
>  Bastien
>
>


-- 
Rainer M. Krug, PhD (Conservation Ecology, SUN), MSc (Conservation Biology,
UCT), Dipl. Phys. (Germany)

Centre of Excellence for Invasion Biology
Stellenbosch University
South Africa

Tel :       +33 - (0)9 53 10 27 44
Cell:       +33 - (0)6 85 62 59 98
Fax (F):       +33 - (0)9 58 10 27 44

Fax (D):    +49 - (0)3 21 21 25 22 44

email:      Rainer@krugs.de

Skype:      RMkrug

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Re: working with delimited files

[Sivaram Neelakantan]

On Fri, Jul 08 2011,Bastien  wrote:

> Hi Sivaram,
>
> Sivaram Neelakantan <nsivaram.net@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> This makes it easier to read as you can see below
>> | BEL | EQ | 02-Jan-2006 |  993.15 |     998 |    1001 |     983 |..
>> | BEL | EQ | 03-Jan-2006 |  989.05 |   999.5 |    1000 |   989.9 |..
>> | BEL | EQ | 04-Jan-2006 |  994.35 |     998 |    1014 |  986.15 |..
>>
>> How do I use the overlay for editing but keep the underlying file
>> structure?  
>
> I can see a solution where you could add an overlay to display the table
> (say, with C-u C-c |, for example) but you won't be able to *edit*.

Right, I'm able to read the file as a table using C-C |, though it
ends up as a changed buffer.  For simple viewing, I really do not mind
the current set up that just modifies the buffer I.e C-c| is good
enough(an option to open read-only would be nice).


However, it's the ability to use the overlay to edit and save it back
in the same format as in the original file is what I was looking for.


 sivaram
 -- 

Re: working with delimited files

[Sivaram Neelakantan]

On Fri, Jul 08 2011,Rainer M Krug Rainer M Krug wrote:


[snipped 20 lines]

> Definitely useful -  a read-only viewer of delimited files, would be a
> useful feature (and sometimes safer then an editor) which I would use
> regularly.
>
> But a really nice feature would be to be able to open a delimited file as a
> table, then being able to edit it using all the usual org features for
> tables, and being able to export the table to the delimited format again,
> while at the same time being able to save the org file. So there would be
> two aspects:
>
> 1) import delimited file into org-table
> 2) export of table into delimited format
>
> Both in itself would be very useful, but together they would be brilliant.

Exactly!  And auto-{number/name}ing of the columns when importing would
also be nice.


[snipped 10 lines]


 sivaram
 --