# Read an existing txt file

**URL:** https://discourse.julialang.org/t/read-an-existing-txt-file/60473
**Category:** General Usage
**Tags:** input-output, parsing
**Created:** [May 3, 2021, 5:03pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/read-an-existing-txt-file/60473 "2021-05-03T17:03:06Z")
**Posts on this page:** 3
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![rahmani-hossein](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/rahmani-hossein/32/24693_2.png) [@rahmani-hossein](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/rahmani-hossein)
#### Post date: [May 3, 2021, 5:03pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/read-an-existing-txt-file/60473/1 "2021-05-03T17:03:07Z")

</div>

I faced something strange when I create a file and writing sth(by hand) in it I can read it with readdlm and there isn’t any problem .but when I want to read an existed txt file on my desktop it says to me there isn’t anything inside the file (with readdlm an error “LoadError: at row 0, column 0: ArgumentError(“number of rows in dims must be \> 0, got 0”)”)  
it’s my file  
[blobs.txt](https://github.com/julia-vscode/julia-vscode/files/6413635/blobs.txt)

thanks for your helping.

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### Author: ![jling](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/jling/32/212909_2.png) [@jling](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/jling)
#### Post date: [May 3, 2021, 5:08pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/read-an-existing-txt-file/60473/2 "2021-05-03T17:08:58Z")

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![image](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/original/3X/8/8/88e7ff46907448821eb317ead1f099a3d362897c.png)

some `parse` is needed but it read the file just fine.

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<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![Tamas\_Papp](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/tamas_papp/32/25949_2.png) [@Tamas\_Papp](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Tamas_Papp)
#### Post date: [May 4, 2021, 8:03am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/read-an-existing-txt-file/60473/3 "2021-05-04T08:03:36Z")

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Works fine for me, too:

```julia
julia> using DelimitedFiles

julia> readdlm("/tmp/blobs.txt")
150×2 Matrix{Any}:
 -3.73391 "-6.77247883e-02;"
  2.83756 "-2.77758074e+00;"
  ⋮          

```