Reading order of values in txt file

[Hippocode]

Hi,

I'm working on a script that reads a file ( tab delimited ) and rewrites it afterwards.

The issue is, that if I do the following Read(Val1,Val2...) and there is no val1 in the file, the val2 will be stored in Val1 etc..

Is there any way to code past this ? (Besides working with a CSV file and exploding the input)

PROCEDURE Example;
CONST
cTab =  chr(9);
TYPE
SheetCells = STRUCTURE
	A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H,I,J,K,L,M,N,O		:STRING;
END;
VAR
   fileName :STRING; 
   major, minor, maintenance, platform :INTEGER;
i,j	:INTEGER;
SheetData	:DYNARRAY[] OF SheetCells;

BEGIN
   GetVersion(major, minor, maintenance, platform);
   IF platform = 1 THEN BEGIN
       { mac }
   END ELSE BEGIN
	{ windows }
	GetFile(FileName);
   END;
IF NOT DidCancel THEN BEGIN
	{ read }
	open(fileName);
		WHILE NOT EOF(fileName) DO BEGIN
			i:=i+1;
			ALLOCATE SheetData[1..i];
			ReadLn(SheetData[i].A,SheetData[i].B,SheetData[i].C,SheetData[i].D,SheetData[i].E,SheetData[i].F,SheetData[i].G,SheetData[i].H,SheetData[i].I,SheetData[i].J,SheetData[i].K,SheetData[i].L,SheetData[i].M,SheetData[i].N,SheetData[i].O);

		END;
	Close(fileName);

	{ rewrite }
	ReWrite(fileName);
		FOR j:=1 TO i DO BEGIN
			WriteLn(SheetData[j].A,cTab,SheetData[j].B,cTab,SheetData[j].C,cTab,SheetData[j].D,cTab,SheetData[j].E,cTab,SheetData[j].F,cTab,SheetData[j].G,cTab,SheetData[j].H,cTab,SheetData[j].I,cTab,'J',cTab,'K',cTab,'L',cTab,'M',cTab,'N',cTab,'O');
		END;
	Close(fileName);
END;
END;
RUN(Example);

Edited June 24, 2013 by hippothamus

[MullinRJ]

You'll have to have data in every field. VW read/write functions are not that sophisticated.

Or, you'll have to read each line and count the number of delimiters in a row before valid data and offset your field assignments, (i.e., you'll have to parse the input strings manually.)

Raymond

[Hippocode]

I went the manual way, with a looping function to explode the full string it's not so bad at all.

[Pat Stanford]

Make sure you check out the difference between the Read and StdRead procedures. StdRead was added to make it easier to bring in the entire line of data to parse.