I am reading a file with CSV.read(...) that contains many consecutive spaces between columns because the colmuns are padded. I passed the keyword argument delim=' ', but it thinks that every space counts as a new column, instead of ignoring long stretches of consecutive white spaces. How can I do …

What delimiter is it using? Have you tried CSV.read(filename, delim=delim) without anything else? That should work. If at all possible you should try to have csv’s with quote characters (e.g. “”") for strings, though of course one cannot always control what one gets. Worst case scenario you can …

[image] ExpandingMan: Have you tried CSV.read(filename, delim=delim) without anything else? That’s what I did. Precisely CSV.read(filename, delim=' ')

Sorry, I meant what is the actual file delimiter (as in commas, tabs)? I think it should work if you only give it that and nothing else, otherwise you’ll have to use strip.

The delimiter is whitespace. But the columns are padded. This means that there is more than one space between columns

[image] e3c6: The delimiter is whitespace. Whitespace as in tab? If it’s tab you should do delim='\t'. Maybe you’re implying that it’s just fixed width and there are no delimiters. I’ve never encountered such a thing, but I’ve seen some crazy stuff so I guess nothing would shock me at this…

If that’s indeed a fixed-width file, see: [image] Is there no standard way to read files with fixed width columns in the new DataFrames ecosystem? Data I’ve been using DataFrames.readtable() to read files with fixed width columns, but that function is now deprecated in fav…

Thanks, that’s just my issue. Good to know it’s on the Todo list

For CSVFiles.jl you can use the spacedelim option: using CSVFiles, DataFrames df = DataFrame(load("filename.csv", spacedelim=true))

I think it is a normal behaviour for counting double space as the one with missing column. Otherwise, there is an ambiguity on how to define possible NAs

I see your point. But the interesting thing is that DataFrames.read_table(..., separator=' ') handles this without problems. It automatically ignores the padding blank spaces.

Ignore consecutive whitespaces with CSV.read(...)

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nalimilan May 31, 2018, 8:19pm 7

If that’s indeed a fixed-width file, see:

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Ignore consecutive whitespaces with CSV.read(...)

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