I have several hundred text files that contain a lot of information. Each file has 3 columns (the first two are the same for all the files).
I need to merge the third column of all the files in a new file. And insert a column header with the name of the file from where the column belongs.
The txt files that have the three columns like this:
-118.33333333333279 40.041666666667908 11.409999847412109
-118.29166666666612 40.041666666667908 11.090000152587891
-118.24999999999946 40.041666666667908 10.920000076293945
-118.20833333333279 40.041666666667908 10.949999809265137
The txt file I am trying to create should look like this:
Name_of_file_1 Name_of_file_2 Name_of_file_3
3rd_Column_File_1 3rd_Column_File_2 3rd_Column_File_3
3rd_Column_File_1 3rd_Column_File_2 3rd_Column_File_3
3rd_Column_File_1 3rd_Column_File_2 3rd_Column_File_3
3rd_Column_File_1 3rd_Column_File_2 3rd_Column_File_3
Is this possible? I can't find a way to do so. Please help!!!
Pepo
This is one way to do it. Comments on the code in-line:
import csv
# List of your files
file_names = ['file1', 'file2']
# Output list of generator objects
o_data = []
# Open files in the succession and
# store the file_name as the first
# element followed by the elements of
# the third column.
for afile in file_names:
file_h = open(afile)
a_list = []
a_list.append(afile)
csv_reader = csv.reader(file_h, delimiter=' ')
for row in csv_reader:
a_list.append(row[2])
# Convert the list to a generator object
o_data.append((n for n in a_list))
file_h.close()
# Use zip and csv writer to iterate
# through the generator objects and
# write out to the output file
with open('output', 'w') as op_file:
csv_writer = csv.writer(op_file, delimiter=' ')
for row in list(zip(*o_data)):
csv_writer.writerow(row)
op_file.close()
I would use unix tools for this:
mkfifo pipe1
mkfifo pipe2
mkfifo pipe3
cut -d " " -f 3 text1.csv > pipe1 &
cut -d " " -f 3 text2.csv > pipe2 &
cut -d " " -f 3 text3.csv > pipe3 &
paste pipe1 pipe2 pipe3 > final.csv
rm pipe1 pipe2 pipe3
Links to the used tools:
You can use the above code example to develop you own shell script.