Import tabular text data

Question

I have a text file created with a bash script I wanted to read the data avoiding the first line.

I have written few dirty codes, but I wondered if anybody can do it in fewest possible nice one liners. I'm trying to learn to code more efficiently.

Here is the table.

Compound        State       Method      Approach    S^2         Energy              Cube file       Path
CF2             triplet     CC          NONE        2.007614    -237.329191671337   plotted         ./3B1/CF2-CC-t.out
CF2             triplet     DFT         NONE        2.005408    -237.601091985298   plotted         ./3B1/CF2-t.out

I am looking for the nicest possible way to read all this table into a matrix DATA[[x,y]]

Answer 1

Assuming the file containing the data has the extension ".tsv" and that you want to choose the file from a system file-open dialog (rather than type in the file name), it can be done with

data = 
   Module[{path}, 
     path = 
       SystemDialogInput["FileOpen", "*.tsv", WindowTitle -> "Select a TSV file"];
     If[path === $Canceled, $Canceled, Import[path, "HeaderLines" -> 1]]];
data

{{"CF2", "triplet", "CC", "NONE", 2.00761, -237.329, "plotted", "./3B1/CF2-CC-t.out"}, 
 {"CF2", "triplet", "DFT", "NONE", 2.00541, -237.601, "plotted", "./3B1/CF2-t.out"}}

If you don't want to be restricted to the extension ".tsv", use

data = 
   Module[{path}, 
     path = 
       SystemDialogInput["FileOpen", "*.*", WindowTitle -> "Select a data file"];
     If[path === $Canceled, $Canceled, Import[path, "TSV", "HeaderLines" -> 1]]];

But the file itself will still have to be a tab delimited file.