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  3. Introduction to Importing Data in Python

Exercise

Customizing your NumPy import

What if there are rows, such as a header, that you don't want to import? What if your file has a delimiter other than a comma? What if you only wish to import particular columns?

There are a number of arguments that np.loadtxt() takes that you'll find useful:

  • delimiter changes the delimiter that loadtxt() is expecting.
    • You can use ',' for comma-delimited.
    • You can use '\t' for tab-delimited.
  • skiprows allows you to specify how many rows (not indices) you wish to skip
  • usecols takes a list of the indices of the columns you wish to keep.

The file that you'll be importing, digits_header.txt, has a header and is tab-delimited.

Instructions

100 XP
  • Complete the arguments of np.loadtxt(): the file you're importing is tab-delimited, you want to skip the first row and you only want to import the first and third columns.
  • Complete the argument of the print() call in order to print the entire array that you just imported.