Reading and Writing files

In this workshop we will learn how to get data in and out of Python using solely built-in Python functions and types, and we will then move on to see how we can use modules such as asciitable and ATpy to read tables of data in various formats. But before getting to file I/O we’ll start filling in your basic Python knowledge with a primer on Python data types.

Pure Python primer

• Python Built-in Types and Operations
  • Basic numeric types
  • Lists, tuples, and sets
  • Strings
  • Dictionaries
  • A note on Python objects
• Reading and Writing tabular ASCII data
  • Pure Python
  • astropy.io.ascii
  • Numpy
• Reading and Writing binary data
  • astropy.io.fits
  • Reading IDL .sav files
• Summary and excercise

Authors:Tom Robitaille, Tom Aldcroft, Moritz Guenther Copyright:2011 Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory