Re: save -ascii filename variable

[Mike Miller]

On Wed, 9 Mar 2005, Anderson, John M. wrote:

> When I save a variable in ascii format, some header information is 
> included (e.g., save -ascii fn imageresult):
>
> Created by: ...
> Name: ...
> Type: ...
> Rows: ...
> Column: ...
>
> How can I (1) remove the header information in a C program or (2) save a 
> variable in ascii format w/o the header?


Coincidentally, we were just discussing this very issue.  You can't do '2' 
yet, but for '1', when you have saved only one variable in the ascii file, 
you can run this script:


------------------------begin script on next line----------------------
#!/usr/bin/perl -i -p

# This removes the initial header lines of an octave ascii data file

BEGIN{undef $/} s/(# [^\n]*\n)+ / /
------------------------end script on previous line--------------------


In any collection of text files, it removes all initial consecutive lines 
that begin with '# ' (without the quotes) when the following line begins 
with a space.  You could name the script 'remove_octave_headers', make 
sure the path to perl is correct for your system (that is, edit the first 
line of the script appropriately), then run it like this to fix all the 
Octave ascii output files (all files with extension .out) in the default 
directory:

remove_octave_headers *.out

It replaces all of the original .out files with the headerless files.  I 
am assuming that a line beginning with a space always follows the last 
line of the header - I believe that is always true.

Other people have suggested using grep, or whatever, but this perl method 
is very convenient because it allows you to replace without the extra step 
of making a second file and renaming or deleting.  It's the easiest way I 
can think of to do it.

Mike

--
Michael B. Miller, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Division of Epidemiology and Community Health
and Institute of Human Genetics
University of Minnesota
http://taxa.epi.umn.edu/~mbmiller/



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