Reading data from a delimited text file
File handling with Python is a very important topic for GIS programmers. Text files are often used as an interchange format for exchanging data between systems. They are simple, cross-platform, and easy to process. Comma-and tab-delimited text files are among the most commonly used formats for text files, so we'll take an extensive look at the Python tools available for processing these files. A common task for GIS programmers is to read comma-delimited text files containing x and y coordinates along with other attribute information. This information is then converted into GIS data formats, such as shapefiles or geodatabases.
Getting ready
To use Python's built-in file processing functionality, you must ...
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