带有行继续的Python Pandas read_table

Question

Is it possible for pandas to read a text file that contains line continuation?

For example, say I have a text file, 'read_table.txt', that looks like this:

col1, col2
a, a string
b, a very long \
   string
c, another string

If I invoke read_table on the file I get this:

>>> pandas.read_table('read_table.txt', delimiter=',')
        col1             col2
0          a         a string
1          b    a very long \
2     string              NaN
3          c   another string

I'd like to get this:

        col1                  col2
0          a              a string
1          b    a very long string
2          c        another string

Answer 1

Use escapechar :

df = pd.read_table('in.txt', delimiter=',',escapechar="\\")

That will include the newline as DSM pointed out, you can remove the newlines with df.col2 = df.col2.str.replace("\\n\\s*","")

Answer 2

I couldn't get the escapechar option to work as Padraic suggested, probably because I'm stuck on a Windows box at the moment (tell-tale \\r ):

        col1             col2
0          a         a string
1          b   a very long \r
2     string              NaN
3          c   another string

What I did get to work correctly was a regex pass:

import pandas as pd
import re
import StringIO    # python 2 on this machine, embarrassingly

with open('read_table.txt') as f_in:
    file_string = f_in.read()

subbed_str = re.sub('\\\\\n\s*', '', file_string)

df = pd.read_table(StringIO.StringIO(subbed_str), delimiter=',')

This yielded your desired output:

  col1                 col2
0    a             a string
1    b   a very long string
2    c       another string

Very cool question. Thanks for sharing it!