Interpreting this raw text - a strategy?

Question

I have this raw text: ``` ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Pos Car Competitor/Team Driver Vehicle Cap CL Laps Race.Time Fastest...Lap 1 6 Jason Clements Jason Clements BMW M3 3200 10 9:48.5710 3 0:57.3228* 2 42 David Skillender David Skillender Holden VS Commodore 6000 10 9:55.6866 2 0:57.9409 3 37 Bruce Cook Bruce Cook Ford Escort 3759 10 9:56.4388 4 0:58.3359 4 18 Troy Marinelli Troy Marinelli Nissan Silvia 3396 10 9:56.7758 2 0:58.4443 5 75 Anthony Gilbertson Anthony Gilbertson BMW M3 3200 10 10:02.5842 3 0:58.9336 6 26 Trent Purcell Trent Purcell Mazda RX7 2354 10 10:07.6285 4 0:59.0546 7 12 Scott Hunter Scott Hunter Toyota Corolla 2000 10 10:11.3722 5 0:59.8921 8 91 Graeme Wilkinson Graeme Wilkinson Ford Escort 2000 10 10:13.4114 5 1:00.2175 9 7 Justin Wade Justin Wade BMW M3 4000 10 10:18.2020 9 1:00.8969 10 55 Greg Craig Grag Craig Toyota Corolla 1840 10 10:18.9956 7 1:00.7905 11 46…

Accepted Answer

You can use the `fixed_width` gem.

Your given file can be parsed with the following code:

```
require 'fixed_width'
require 'pp'

FixedWidth.define :cars do |d|
  d.head do |head|
    head.trap { |line| line !~ /\d/ }
  end
  d.body do |body|
    body.trap { |line| line =~ /^(\d|DNF)/ }
    body.column :pos, 4
    body.column :car, 5
    body.column :competitor, 31
    body.column :driver, 25
    body.column :vehicle, 21
    body.column :cap, 5
    body.column :cl_laps, 11
    body.column :race_time, 11
    body.column :fast_lap_no, 4
    body.column :fast_lap_time, 10
  end
end

pp FixedWidth.parse(File.open("races.txt"), :cars)
```

The `trap` method identifies the lines in each section. I used regex:

- The `head` regex looks for lines that don't contain a digit.

- The `body` regex looks for lines starting with a digit or "DNF"

Each section must include the line immediately after the last. The `column` definitions simply identify the number of columns to grab. The library strips whitespace for you. If you wanted to produce a fixed-width file, you can add alignment parameters, but it doesn't appear you will need that.

The result is a hash that starts like this:

```
{:head=>[{}, {}, {}],
 :body=>
  [{:pos=>"1",
    :car=>"6",
    :competitor=>"Jason Clements",
    :driver=>"Jason Clements",
    :vehicle=>"BMW M3",
    :cap=>"3200",
    :cl_laps=>"10",
    :race_time=>"9:48.5710",
    :fast_lap_no=>"3",
    :fast_lap_time=>"0:57.3228"},
   {:pos=>"2",
    :car=>"42",
    :competitor=>"David Skillender",
    :driver=>"David Skillender",
    :vehicle=>"Holden VS Commodore",
    :cap=>"6000",
    :cl_laps=>"10",
    :race_time=>"9:55.6866",
    :fast_lap_no=>"2",
    :fast_lap_time=>"0:57.9409"},
```

Interpreting this raw text - a strategy?

Solution

Problem