Convert between SEC and CSV

[cym0k]

I am trying to find a quick tool to convert file types. Is there one?

Doing it by hand in LibreOffice is breaking my back!

(I want to put the SEC file from here: http://zho.berka.com/maps/the-foreven-sector/ into here: http://heldenhaufen.de/T5/SectorMaker to see what happens)

 

[JimMarn]

I tried importing it into LibreOffice, just the part below the ....+....1....+....2 line... it all wound up in column A.

I was able to save as a csv, but everything stayed in column A.

Looks like a program that would read it in by start column and end column for each piece of data on each line, would do it. That info is in the sec file.

Then you could save out as csv.

Unfortunately, I don't know of any program that will do that.

 

[inexorabletash]

When importing text files into Excel, you can manually adjust how the text is split into columns. Did LibreOffice copy that feature?

If you're still stuck I can whip up a web page that'll convert for you.

 

[JimMarn]

LibreOffice help files are on-line, is this what you mean ?

https://help.libreoffice.org/Common/Text_Import

I'm not much on spreadsheets.

 

[Adam Dray]

There's a flat file extractor that looks useful for this, but it takes a little Unix and coding knowledge. I can probably do some one-off parsing for people, if you need it. If I feel clever and inspired, I can turn it into a web utility for people to use.

Can someone point me at the relevant input format specification for the SEC file?

 

[inexorabletash]

LibreOffice help files are on-line, is this what you mean ?

https://help.libreoffice.org/Common/Text_Import

I'm not much on spreadsheets.

Yeah, the "fixed width" format is what you want. As it says, click on the ruler to set the field widths.

Re: SEC

My attempt at documenting the format is at:

http://travellermap.com/doc/fileformats

 

[cym0k]

A good thing to do is find and replace any spaces with tabs of commas so that a spreadsheet import can designate those characters as column breaks.

The .SEC files I have are laid out great and are readable, but the spaces/blank characters between a name and the UWP varies which impacts the amount of columns you end up with if you do what I suggested above.

That is the thing that is taking the lion's share of the time to manage as it throws all the codes into different places and it becomes a bit of a mind blast (to misquote Small Faces and Stanley Unwin).

There's a flat file extractor that looks useful for this, but it takes a little Unix and coding knowledge. I can probably do some one-off parsing for people, if you need it. If I feel clever and inspired, I can turn it into a web utility for people to use.

Can someone point me at the relevant input format specification for the SEC file?

Just that one file would be wonderful!

 

[RandyB]

A good thing to do is find and replace any spaces with tabs of commas so that a spreadsheet import can designate those characters as column breaks.

The .SEC files I have are laid out great and are readable, but the spaces/blank characters between a name and the UWP varies which impacts the amount of columns you end up with if you do what I suggested above.

That is the thing that is taking the lion's share of the time to manage as it throws all the codes into different places and it becomes a bit of a mind blast (to misquote Small Faces and Stanley Unwin).

After that find and replace, do a find and replace on multiple tabs or commas and replace with a single tab or comma. Or would that throw off something elsewhere?

 

[cym0k]

It's getting there, but the comments and codes separate. :file_28: