Alan G Isaac schrieb:
There is also a different kind of argument. Sure CSV files are plain
text and
can therefore be easily manipulated by a variety of tools. But they are
also
a core spreadsheet format. Thus the --rowoffset and --coloffset options
of `open` should work with CSV too. Or so I claim, despite offering no
code to do this.
Hi Alan,
in principle I agree that this one's a valid point. However:
* --coloffset doesn't convince me in the case of csv files (as opposed
to --rowoffset in csv files, or --coloffset in spreadsheet files)
* my teaching experience is that it's even more manageable for students
if you tell them: ok, first open the file with a text editor (jedit is
cross-platform for example, but there are hundreds others of course),
insert # signs in the first couple of rows, then you're ready to go.
Many will like this (arguably inefficient) approach even more than
specifying --rowoffset in a script file.
BTW, I can tell you the data handling gets much worse when you live in a
locale with commas as standard decimal separators on the machines that
students and other software use. Then you need even more tricks,
especially with spreadsheet files. So while I think your request is
perfectly legitimate, you guys don't really have a problem ;-)
cheers,
sven