Re: [Matplotlib-users] How to mix maths & text in labels ?

[Fernando P. <Fer...@co...>]

William Henney wrote:

> Yes, I wasn't thinking of specialized data formats. Python already has
> fine support for reading, e.g., FITS files. I was thinking more along
> the lines of gnuplot's support for simple ascii data tables. E.g., easy
> selection of columns to plot, single blank line indicating a gap in the
> plot, double blank line indicating a new dataset, etc. This is all
> trivial stuff that I can easily write myself but it would be nice if it
> were a part of the plotting package (PyX does this well). It's not
> really a sticking point though. 

scipy's read_array, while not identical to gnuplot's, isn't bad at all:

In [8]: scipy.io.read_array?
Type:           function
Base Class:     <type 'function'>
String Form:    <function read_array at 0x4083c614>
Namespace:      Interactive
File:           /usr/lib/python2.3/site-packages/scipy/io/array_import.py
Definition:     scipy.io.read_array(fileobject, separator=None, 
columns=None, comment='#', lines=None, atype='d', linesep='\n', 
rowsize=10000, missing=0)
Docstring:
     Return an array or arrays from ascii_formatted data in |fileobject|.

     Inputs:

       fileobject -- An open file object or a string for a valid filename.
                     The string can be prepended by "~/" or "~<name>/" to
                     read a file from the home directory.
       separator -- a string or a tuple of strings to indicate the column
                    separators.  If the length of the string tuple is less
                    than the total number of columns, then the last 
separator
                    is assumed to be the separator for the rest of the 
columns.
       columns -- a tuple of integers and range-tuples which describe the
                  columns to read from the file.  A negative entry in the
                  last column specifies the negative skip value to the end.
                  Example:  columns=(1, 4, (5, 9), (11, 15, 3), 17, -2)
                          will read [1,4,5,6,7,8,11,14,17,19,21,23,...]
                  If multiple arrays are to be returned, then this argument
                  should be an ordered list of such tuples.  There should be
                  one entry in the list for each arraytype in the atype 
list.
       lines   -- a tuple with the same structure as columns which indicates
                  the lines to read.
       comment -- the comment character (line will be ignored even if it is
                  specified by the lines tuple)
       linesep -- separator between rows.
       missing -- value to insert in array when conversion to number fails.
       atype -- the typecode of the output array.  If multiple outputs are
                desired, then this should be a list of typecodes.  The 
columns
                to fill the array represented by the given typecode is
                determined from the columns argument.  If the length of 
atype
                does not match the length of the columns list, then, the
                smallest one is expanded to match the largest by repeatedly
                copying the last entry.
       rowsize -- the allocation row size (array grows by this amount as
                data is read in).

     Output -- the 1 or 2d array, or a tuple of output arrays of different
               types, sorted in order of the first column to be placed
               in the output array.

cheers,

f