[GAP Forum] Reading data?

[Mathieu Dutour]

On Thu, Jul 01, 2004 at 02:07:58PM +0200, Tim B wrote:
> 
> Hi All,
> 
>   this should be a silly question: how do I read in
> some table of data? I have a file with what is essentially
> a matrix as space-separated integers, and I would like
> to get it into GAP as a matrix without having to manually
> place commas and square brackets in the file.
> 
>   This has to be easy, but I cannot find even the faintest
> shimmer of a way to make it happen - I cannot even see how
> to read an integer!
> 
>   Hope someone can help!
> 
>   Cheers,
> 
>   Tim

Dear Tim,

I am confronted with a similar problem very frequently.
The solution, which I am using, is to use perl script.
So, in your case the script would transform the file

 1 2 3
 4 5 6

into the file 

return [[1,2,3],[4,5,6]];

which you can get in GAP by the command

TheMat:=ReadAsFunction("fileMat")();

If necessary I will write the script for you, the idea being
that every kind of file requires its own script.

Hope this help.

  Mathieu

-- 
Mathieu Dutour			Researcher in Math
Tel. (+972)2 65 84 103		and Computer Science
Fax. (+972)2 56 30 702		Einstein Institute of Mathematics
E-mail: Mathieu.Dutour at ens.fr	Hebrew University of Jerusalem
http://www.liga.ens.fr/~dutour	Israel