[Maxima-discuss] Reading data from header

[André F. <a.f...@gm...>]

I have been using Maxima now for a few months and I am getting comfortable
with it. But I have problem now with some calculations I have to do. I am
reading in data from hundreds of external files. Each file has a header
that looks like this

/* RGBident=000000 */
/* Press=1.018119e+00 */
/* Density=1.000000e+00 */
/* AutoCalib=0 */
/* Temp=2.228929e+02 */
/* Log=1515870810 */
/* Length=1.000000e+01 */
/* Name=(null) */
/* File: absorbed_pre.csv */

currently I ignore the header completely by using this script here

/* [wxMaxima: subsect start ]
Data files with comments at the top
   [wxMaxima: subsect end   ] */
/* [wxMaxima: input   start ] */
intNumberOfReffiles : length(DataRefFile);
/* [wxMaxima: input   end   ] */
/* [wxMaxima: input   start ] */
read_commented_dataFile(fileName) := block([NumberofComments, SPEData1,
SPEDataLength1, h2, i, n, log10absorption],
 errcatch(
        kill(h2),
        SPEData1 : read_nested_list( fileName),
        SPEDataLength1 : length(SPEData1),
        n : 1,
       for i:1 while  ((numberp(SPEData1[n][1]) = false) and (n <
SPEDataLength1)) do (n : n + 1),
        NumberofComments : n - 1,
     SPEDataLength1 : SPEDataLength1- NumberofComments,
        print("Comment lines: ", NumberofComments),
        h2[x, y] := if y = 2 then SPEData1[x + NumberofComments][2] else
SPEData1[x + NumberofComments][1],
        log10absorption : genmatrix (h2, SPEDataLength1, 2),
        kill(h2),
        log10absorption)[1])$
/* [wxMaxima: input   end   ] */
/* [wxMaxima: input   start ] */
i : 1;
/* [wxMaxima: input   end   ] */
/* [wxMaxima: input   start ] */
for n : 1 thru intNumberOfReffiles do
(
   if errcatch( Data[i] : read_commented_dataFile(concat(workDir,
DataRefFile[n]))) = []
      then
(
     print("ERROR in: ", DataRefFile[n])
   )
      else
     (
   DataFile[i] : DataFile[n],
        print(n, " of ", intNumberOfReffiles, ": ", DataFile[i], " - ",
length(Data[i]), " First cell:", Data[i][1]),
   NumberOfReffiles : i,
        i : i+1
)
 )$
/* [wxMaxima: input   end   ] */
/* [wxMaxima: input   start ] */
NumberOfReffiles;
/* [wxMaxima: input   end   ] */

but now I need to read the numbers in the header into Maxima for
calculation purposes. Any suggestions?