From: Robert Klemme <shortcutter@...>
Date: 2012-08-03T18:05:40+09:00
Subject: Re: Having difficulty processing text files - some techniques?

On Fri, Aug 3, 2012 at 10:39 AM, b1_ __ <lists@ruby-forum.com> wrote:

> The problem I am having is that I need to have the extracted data
> associate with hand data. Hand data might be the date of the hand was
> played, the number of players in the hand, the blind level. This means I
> need isolate each hand, extract the hand data and put it in a hash for
> example, then extract stats like VP$IP for each player (a hand-by-hand
> approach rather than a file-wide approach). So the output might go into
> a text file specific to each player that would look like:
>
> Player 1
>     VP$IP   2P  3P  4P  All  HandsAtTables
> 2012-07-23    3  201  21  225  534
> 2012-07-24    45  10  3  58  1001
> 2012-07-25     5  5  5  15  420
>
> Can I do this without storing data in arrays or objects?

Unlikely.  You likely need a Hash for storage per hand and probably
more - depending on your evaluation requirements.  Note that you can
create classes for holding data pretty easily by using Struct

HandData = Struct.new :date_played, :no_players, :blind_level

> I've been
> thinking I can use another Finite State Machine, only look for the words
> "Hand" (start of hand) and "wins" (end of hand),

No, a second FSM for parsing only makes things unnecessary complicated.

> the problem is I need
> some of the data on the line that has the word "Hand" on it, something I
> can't do with my code above. I also need to switch between hands when
> there are no lines between the word "wins" and the next line which will
> have the word "Hands" on it indicating the start of the next hand.

I haven't thought through all the details but chances are that you
just need more states.  Basically you need one state per logical
section which you are parsing.  You can then use nested case
statements, either state first and then line parsing or other way
round:

case state
when :foo
  case line
  when /Hole Cards/
    ...
    state = :bar
  end
when :baz
  case line
  when /keyword/
  ...
  end
...
end

Btw. you can save one level of indentation by using File.foreach:

File.open name do |f|
  f.each line |line|
    ...
  end
end

becomes

File.foreach name do |line|
  ...
end
Kind regards

robert

-- 
remember.guy do |as, often| as.you_can - without end
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