Hopefully this can be done with python! I used two clustering programs on the same data and now have a cluster file from both. I reformatted the files so that they look like this:
Cluster 0:
Brucellaceae(10)
Brucella(10)
abortus(1)
canis(1)
ceti(1)
inopinata(1)
melitensis(1)
microti(1)
neotomae(1)
ovis(1)
pinnipedialis(1)
suis(1)
Cluster 1:
Streptomycetaceae(28)
Streptomyces(28)
achromogenes(1)
albaduncus(1)
anthocyanicus(1)
etc.
These files contain bacterial species info. So I have the cluster number (Cluster 0), then right below it 'family' (Brucellaceae) and the number of bacteria in that family (10). Under that is the genera found in that family (name followed by number, Brucella(10)) and finally the species in each genera (abortus(1), etc.).
My question: I have 2 files formatted in this way and want to write a program that will look for differences between the two. The only problem is that the two programs cluster in different ways, so two cluster may be the same, even if the actual "Cluster Number" is different (so the contents of Cluster 1 in one file might match Cluster 43 in the other file, the only different being the actual cluster number). So I need something to ignore the cluster number and focus on the cluster contents.
Is there any way I could compare these 2 files to examine the differences? Is it even possible? Any ideas would be greatly appreciated!
Given:
file1 = '''Cluster 0:
giant(2)
red(2)
brick(1)
apple(1)
Cluster 1:
tiny(3)
green(1)
dot(1)
blue(2)
flower(1)
candy(1)'''.split('\n')
file2 = '''Cluster 18:
giant(2)
red(2)
brick(1)
tomato(1)
Cluster 19:
tiny(2)
blue(2)
flower(1)
candy(1)'''.split('\n')
Is this what you need?
def parse_file(open_file):
result = []
for line in open_file:
indent_level = len(line) - len(line.lstrip())
if indent_level == 0:
levels = ['','','']
item = line.lstrip().split('(', 1)[0]
levels[indent_level - 1] = item
if indent_level == 3:
result.append('.'.join(levels))
return result
data1 = set(parse_file(file1))
data2 = set(parse_file(file2))
differences = [
('common elements', data1 & data2),
('missing from file2', data1 - data2),
('missing from file1', data2 - data1) ]
To see the differences:
for desc, items in differences:
print desc
print
for item in items:
print '\t' + item
print
prints
common elements
giant.red.brick
tiny.blue.candy
tiny.blue.flower
missing from file2
tiny.green.dot
giant.red.apple
missing from file1
giant.red.tomato
So just for help, as I see lots of different answers in the comment, I'll give you a very, very simple implementation of a script that you can start from.
Note that this does not answer your full question but points you in one of the directions in the comments.
Normally if you have no experience I'd argue to go a head and read up on Python (which i'll do anyways, and i'll throw in a few links in the bottom of the answer)
On to the fun stuffs! :)
class Cluster(object):
'''
This is a class that will contain your information about the Clusters.
'''
def __init__(self, number):
'''
This is what some languages call a constructor, but it's not.
This method initializes the properties with values from the method call.
'''
self.cluster_number = number
self.family_name = None
self.bacteria_name = None
self.bacteria = []
#This part below isn't a part of the class, this is the actual script.
with open('bacteria.txt', 'r') as file:
cluster = None
clusters = []
for index, line in enumerate(file):
if line.startswith('Cluster'):
cluster = Cluster(index)
clusters.append(cluster)
else:
if not cluster.family_name:
cluster.family_name = line
elif not cluster.bacteria_name:
cluster.bacteria_name = line
else:
cluster.bacteria.append(line)
I wrote this as dumb and overly simple as I could without any fancy stuff and for Python 2.7.2
You could copy this file into a .py file and run it directly from command line python bacteria.py for example.
Hope this helps a bit and don't hesitate to come by our Python chat room if you have any questions! :)
http://learnpythonthehardway.org/
http://www.diveintopython.net/
http://docs.python.org/2/tutorial/inputoutput.html
check if all elements in a list are identical
Retaining order while using Python's set difference
You have to write some code to parse the file. If you ignore the cluster, you should be able to distinguish between family, genera and species based on indentation.
The easiest way it to define a named tuple:
import collections
Bacterium = collections.namedtuple('Bacterium', ['family', 'genera', 'species'])
You can make in instance of this object like this:
b = Bacterium('Brucellaceae', 'Brucella', 'canis')
Your parser should read a file line by line, and set the family and genera. If it then finds a species, it should add a Bacterium to a list;
with open('cluster0.txt', 'r') as infile:
lines = infile.readlines()
family = None
genera = None
bacteria = []
for line in lines:
# set family and genera.
# if you detect a bacterium:
bacteria.append(Bacterium(family, genera, species))
Once you have a list of all bacteria in each file or cluster, you can select from all the bacteria like this:
s = [b for b in bacteria if b.genera == 'Streptomycetaceae']
Comparing two clusterings is not trivial task and reinventing the wheel is unlikely to be successful. Check out this package which has lots of different cluster similarity metrics and can compare dendrograms (the data structure you have).
The library is called CluSim and can be found here:
https://github.com/Hoosier-Clusters/clusim/
After learning so much from Stackoverflow, finally I have an opportunity to give back! A different approach from those offered so far is to relabel clusters to maximize alignment, and then comparison becomes easy. For example, if one algorithm assigns labels to a set of six items as L1=[0,0,1,1,2,2] and another assigns L2=[2,2,0,0,1,1], you want these two labelings to be equivalent since L1 and L2 are essentially segmenting items into clusters identically. This approach relabels L2 to maximize alignment, and in the example above, will result in L2==L1.
I found a soution to this problem in "Menéndez, Héctor D. A genetic approach to the graph and spectral clustering problem. MS thesis. 2012." and below is an implementation in Python using numpy. I'm relatively new to Python, so there may be better implementations, but I think this gets the job done:
def alignClusters(clstr1,clstr2):
"""Given 2 cluster assignments, this funciton will rename the second to
maximize alignment of elements within each cluster. This method is
described in in Menéndez, Héctor D. A genetic approach to the graph and
spectral clustering problem. MS thesis. 2012. (Assumes cluster labels
are consecutive integers starting with zero)
INPUTS:
clstr1 - The first clustering assignment
clstr2 - The second clustering assignment
OUTPUTS:
clstr2_temp - The second clustering assignment with clusters renumbered to
maximize alignment with the first clustering assignment """
K = np.max(clstr1)+1
simdist = np.zeros((K,K))
for i in range(K):
for j in range(K):
dcix = clstr1==i
dcjx = clstr2==j
dd = np.dot(dcix.astype(int),dcjx.astype(int))
simdist[i,j] = (dd/np.sum(dcix!=0) + dd/np.sum(dcjx!=0))/2
mask = np.zeros((K,K))
for i in range(K):
simdist_vec = np.reshape(simdist.T,(K**2,1))
I = np.argmax(simdist_vec)
xy = np.unravel_index(I,simdist.shape,order='F')
x = xy[0]
y = xy[1]
mask[x,y] = 1
simdist[x,:] = 0
simdist[:,y] = 0
swapIJ = np.unravel_index(np.where(mask.T),simdist.shape,order='F')
swapI = swapIJ[0][1,:]
swapJ = swapIJ[0][0,:]
clstr2_temp = np.copy(clstr2)
for k in range(swapI.shape[0]):
swapj = [swapJ[k]==i for i in clstr2]
clstr2_temp[swapj] = swapI[k]
return clstr2_temp
Related
I am looking for a way to visualize, for the lack of a better word, the "density" or "heatmap" of some synthetic time series I have created.
I have a loop that creates a list, which are values of one time series. I don't think it matters but just in case, here is the code of what's going on. This is a Markov Process, so with each i, which represents the hour, i create a new value, depending on the former i and state:
for x in range(10000):
start_h = 0
start_s = 1
generated_values_list = []
for i in range(start_h,120):
if i>=24:
i=i%24
print(str(start_s)+" | " +str(i))
pot_value_list = GMM_vals_container_workingdays_spring["State: "+ str(start_s)+", hour: "+str(i)]
if len(pot_value_list)>50:
actual_value = random.choice(pot_value_list)#
#cdf, gmm_x, gmm = GMM_erstellen(pot_value_list,50)
#actual_value = gmm.sample()[0][0][0]
#print("made by GMM")
else:
actual_value = random.choice(pot_value_list)
#print("made not by GMM")
generated_values_list.append(actual_value)
probabilities_next_state = TPMs_WD[i][start_s-1]
next_state = random.choices(states,weights=probabilities_next_state)
start_s = next_state[0]
plt.plot(generated_values_list)
But - I think - the only part that matters is this:
for x in range(10000):
#some code that creates the generated_values_list
plt.plot(generated_values_list)
This creates, as expected a picture like this:
It is not clear from here which are the most common paths so I would like to make values that are hit frequently are more colorful while not so frequent values are rather grey.
I think seaborn library has something for that but I don't seem to understand the docs.
Assuming the following text:
# Algorithms
This chapter covers the most basic algorithms.
## Sorting
Quicksort is fast and widely used in practice
Merge sort is a deterministic algorithm
## Searching
DFS and BFS are widely used graph searching algorithms
# Data Structures
more text
## more data structures
How would i create a table of contents in python that if the line starts with # I would replace with 1. for the first #. If the line starts with ## I would replace with 1.1. the second time in the text a # would be seen I need to replace with 2. and so on:
1. Algorithms
1.1. Sorting
1.2. Searching
2. Data Structures
2.1 more data structures
I would begin doing something like :
for line in text:
if line.startswith('#'):
....
but I dont know how to proceed.
You could do something like this:
from collections import defaultdict
levels = defaultdict(int)
max_level = 0
index = []
for line in text:
if not line.startswith("#"):
continue
hashes, caption = line.rstrip().split(maxsplit=1)
level = len(hashes)
max_level = max(level, max_level)
levels[level] += 1
for l in range(level + 1, max_level + 1):
levels[l] = 0
index.append(
".".join(str(levels[l]) for l in range(1, level+1))
+ ". " + caption
)
Some expanations:
levels stores the current state of the counter of the table of contents. It's a defaultdict(int) because its values are ints and that makes it easy to use.
max_level stores the maximal depth of the counter so far. (E.g.: In the step from only single #s to the first ## the maximal depth increases (1->2).)
If a line of the text startswith # then it is split in 2 parts: 1. the hashes and 2. the caption.
The number of hashes (len(hashes)) is the level-depth of the current entry. Just in case it increases the maximum depth so far, max_level gets an update (often doing nothing).
Then the counter for the current level is increaed by 1, and all the counters for the levels beyond the current one get a reset to 0. (E.g.: If the last state of the counter was 1.2 and then the first level gets increased (#), not only must the counter switch the first place (1->2) but also the second level needs a reset (2->0).) Another would be to delete those levels.
The output in the join contains all the individual counters up to the current level (E.g., to get 1.3. instead of 1.3.0.0.0.0. etc.)
Result for
from io import StringIO
text = StringIO(
'''
# Algorithms
This chapter covers the most basic algorithms.
## Sorting
Quicksort is fast and widely used in practice
Merge sort is a deterministic algorithm
## Searching
DFS and BFS are widely used graph searching algorithms
# Data Structures
more text
## more data structures
''')
is
['1. Algorithms',
'1.1. Sorting',
'1.2. Searching',
'2. Data Structures',
'2.1. more data structures']
Another, but similiar approach, without defaultdict would be:
levels = []
index = []
for line in text:
if not line.startswith("#"):
continue
hashes, caption = line.rstrip().split(maxsplit=1)
level = len(hashes)
if level > len(levels):
levels.append(1)
else:
levels[level-1] += 1
levels = levels[:level]
index.append(
".".join(str(l) for l in levels) + ". " + caption
)
You can use recursion:
from collections import defaultdict
def to_table(d, p = []):
r, c, l = defaultdict(list), 0, None
for a, *b in d:
if a != '#' and p:
yield f'{".".join(map(str, p))} {"".join(b)}'
elif a == '#':
r[l:=((c:=c+1) if b[0] != '#' else c)].append(''.join(b))
yield from [j for a, b in r.items() for j in to_table(b, p+[a])]
s = """
# Algorithms
This chapter covers the most basic algorithms.
## Sorting
Quicksort is fast and widely used in practice
Merge sort is a deterministic algorithm
## Searching
DFS and BFS are widely used graph searching algorithms
# Data Structures
more text
## more data structures
"""
print('\n'.join(to_table(list(filter(None, s.split('\n'))))))
Output:
1 Algorithms
1.1 Sorting
1.2 Searching
2 Data Structures
2.1 more data structures
You can keep track of the top-level number and the sub-level number, and substitute the single hashes with the top level number and the double hashes with the format top.sub.
You can refer this
I have looked at the previous questions and answers to my question but can't seem to get this to work. I am very new to python so I apologize in advance for this basic question.
I am running a Monte Carlo simulation in a separate piece of software. It creates a text file output that is quite lengthy. I want to retrieve 3 values that are under one heading. I have created the following code that isolates the part of the text file I want.
f = open("/Users/scott/Desktop/test/difinp0.txt","rt")
difout = f.readlines()
f.close()
d = range(1,5)
for i, line in enumerate(difout):
if "Chi-Square Test for Difference Testing" in line:
for l in difout[i:i+5]: print(l)
This produces the following:
Chi-Square Test for Difference Testing
Value 12.958
Degrees of Freedom 10
P-Value 0.2261
Note: there is a blank line between the heading and the next line titled "Value."
There are a different statistics with the same labels in the output but I need the ones here that are under the heading "Chi-square Test for Difference Testing.
What I am looking for is to save the values into 3 variables for use later.
chivalue (which in this case would be 12.958
chidf (which in this case would be 10)
chip (which in this case would be 0.2261
I've tried to enumerate "l" and retrieve from there but I can't seem to get it to work.
Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated. Again, apologies for such a basic question.
One option is to build a function that parses the input lines and returns the variables you want
def parser(text_lines):
v, d, p = [None]*3
for line in text_lines:
if line.strip().startswith('Value'):
v = float(line.strip().split(' ')[-1])
if line.strip().startswith('Degrees'):
d = float(line.strip().split(' ')[-1])
if line.strip().startswith('P-Value'):
p = float(line.strip().split(' ')[-1])
return v,d,p
for i, line in enumerate(difout):
if "Chi-Square Test for Difference Testing" in line:
for l in difout[i:i+5]:
print(l)
value, degree, p_val = parser(difout[i:i+5])
I give a lot of information on the methods that I used to write my code. If you just want to read my question, skip to the quotes at the end.
I'm working on a project that has a goal of detecting sub populations in a group of patients. I thought this sounded like the perfect opportunity to use association rule mining as I'm currently taking a class on the subject.
I there are 42 variables in total. Of those, 20 are continuous and had to be discretized. For each variable, I used the Freedman-Diaconis rule to determine how many categories to divide a group into.
def Freedman_Diaconis(column_values):
#sort the list first
column_values[1].sort()
first_quartile = int(len(column_values[1]) * .25)
third_quartile = int(len(column_values[1]) * .75)
fq_value = column_values[1][first_quartile]
tq_value = column_values[1][third_quartile]
iqr = tq_value - fq_value
n_to_pow = len(column_values[1])**(-1/3)
h = 2 * iqr * n_to_pow
retval = (column_values[1][-1] - column_values[1][1])/h
test = int(retval+1)
return test
From there I used min-max normalization
def min_max_transform(column_of_data, num_bins):
min_max_normalizer = preprocessing.MinMaxScaler(feature_range=(1, num_bins))
data_min_max = min_max_normalizer.fit_transform(column_of_data[1])
data_min_max_ints = take_int(data_min_max)
return data_min_max_ints
to transform my data and then I simply took the interger portion to get the final categorization.
def take_int(list_of_float):
ints = []
for flt in list_of_float:
asint = int(flt)
ints.append(asint)
return ints
I then also wrote a function that I used to combine this value with the variable name.
def string_transform(prefix, column, index):
transformed_list = []
transformed = ""
if index < 4:
for entry in column[1]:
transformed = prefix+str(entry)
transformed_list.append(transformed)
else:
prefix_num = prefix.split('x')
for entry in column[1]:
transformed = str(prefix_num[1])+'x'+str(entry)
transformed_list.append(transformed)
return transformed_list
This was done to differentiate variables that have the same value, but appear in different columns. For example, having a value of 1 for variable x14 means something different from getting a value of 1 in variable x20. The string transform function would create 14x1 and 20x1 for the previously mentioned examples.
After this, I wrote everything to a file in basket format
def create_basket(list_of_lists, headers):
#for filename in os.listdir("."):
# if filename.e
if not os.path.exists('baskets'):
os.makedirs('baskets')
down_length = len(list_of_lists[0])
with open('baskets/dataset.basket', 'w') as basketfile:
basket_writer = csv.DictWriter(basketfile, fieldnames=headers)
for i in range(0, down_length):
basket_writer.writerow({"trt": list_of_lists[0][i], "y": list_of_lists[1][i], "x1": list_of_lists[2][i],
"x2": list_of_lists[3][i], "x3": list_of_lists[4][i], "x4": list_of_lists[5][i],
"x5": list_of_lists[6][i], "x6": list_of_lists[7][i], "x7": list_of_lists[8][i],
"x8": list_of_lists[9][i], "x9": list_of_lists[10][i], "x10": list_of_lists[11][i],
"x11": list_of_lists[12][i], "x12":list_of_lists[13][i], "x13": list_of_lists[14][i],
"x14": list_of_lists[15][i], "x15": list_of_lists[16][i], "x16": list_of_lists[17][i],
"x17": list_of_lists[18][i], "x18": list_of_lists[19][i], "x19": list_of_lists[20][i],
"x20": list_of_lists[21][i], "x21": list_of_lists[22][i], "x22": list_of_lists[23][i],
"x23": list_of_lists[24][i], "x24": list_of_lists[25][i], "x25": list_of_lists[26][i],
"x26": list_of_lists[27][i], "x27": list_of_lists[28][i], "x28": list_of_lists[29][i],
"x29": list_of_lists[30][i], "x30": list_of_lists[31][i], "x31": list_of_lists[32][i],
"x32": list_of_lists[33][i], "x33": list_of_lists[34][i], "x34": list_of_lists[35][i],
"x35": list_of_lists[36][i], "x36": list_of_lists[37][i], "x37": list_of_lists[38][i],
"x38": list_of_lists[39][i], "x39": list_of_lists[40][i], "x40": list_of_lists[41][i]})
and I used the apriori package in Orange to see if there were any association rules.
rules = Orange.associate.AssociationRulesSparseInducer(patient_basket, support=0.3, confidence=0.3)
print "%4s %4s %s" % ("Supp", "Conf", "Rule")
for r in rules:
my_rule = str(r)
split_rule = my_rule.split("->")
if 'trt' in split_rule[1]:
print 'treatment rule'
print "%4.1f %4.1f %s" % (r.support, r.confidence, r)
Using this, technique I found quite a few association rules with my testing data.
THIS IS WHERE I HAVE A PROBLEM
When I read the notes for the training data, there is this note
...That is, the only
reason for the differences among observed responses to the same treatment across patients is
random noise. Hence, there is NO meaningful subgroup for this dataset...
My question is,
why do I get multiple association rules that would imply that there are subgroups, when according to the notes I shouldn't see anything?
I'm getting lift numbers that are above 2 as opposed to the 1 that you should expect if everything was random like the notes state.
Supp Conf Rule
0.3 0.7 6x0 -> trt1
Even though my code runs, I'm not getting results anywhere close to what should be expected. This leads me to believe that I messed something up, but I'm not sure what it is.
After some research, I realized that my sample size is too small for the number of variables that I have. I would need a way larger sample size in order to really use the method that I was using. In fact, the method that I tried to use was developed with the assumption that it would be run on databases with hundreds of thousands or millions of rows.
I have this task that I've been working on, but am having extreme misgivings about my methodology.
So the problem is that I have a ton of excel files that are formatted strangely (and not consistently) and I need to extract certain fields for each entry. An example data set is
My original approach was this:
Export to csv
Separate into counties
Separate into districts
Analyze each district individually, pull out values
write to output.csv
The problem I've run into is that the format (seemingly well organized) is almost random across files. Each line contains the same fields, but in a different order, spacing, and wording. I wrote a script to correctly process one file, but it doesn't work on any other files.
So my question is, is there a more robust method of approaching this problem rather than simple string processing? What I had in mind was more of a fuzzy logic approach for trying to pin which field an item was, which could handle the inputs being a little arbitrary. How would you approach this problem?
If it helps clear up the problem, here is the script I wrote:
# This file takes a tax CSV file as input
# and separates it into counties
# then appends each county's entries onto
# the end of the master out.csv
# which will contain everything including
# taxes, bonds, etc from all years
#import the data csv
import sys
import re
import csv
def cleancommas(x):
toggle=False
for i,j in enumerate(x):
if j=="\"":
toggle=not toggle
if toggle==True:
if j==",":
x=x[:i]+" "+x[i+1:]
return x
def districtatize(x):
#list indexes of entries starting with "for" or "to" of length >5
indices=[1]
for i,j in enumerate(x):
if len(j)>2:
if j[:2]=="to":
indices.append(i)
if len(j)>3:
if j[:3]==" to" or j[:3]=="for":
indices.append(i)
if len(j)>5:
if j[:5]==" \"for" or j[:5]==" \'for":
indices.append(i)
if len(j)>4:
if j[:4]==" \"to" or j[:4]==" \'to" or j[:4]==" for":
indices.append(i)
if len(indices)==1:
return [x[0],x[1:len(x)-1]]
new=[x[0],x[1:indices[1]+1]]
z=1
while z<len(indices)-1:
new.append(x[indices[z]+1:indices[z+1]+1])
z+=1
return new
#should return a list of lists. First entry will be county
#each successive element in list will be list by district
def splitforstos(string):
for itemind,item in enumerate(string): # take all exception cases that didn't get processed
splitfor=re.split('(?<=\d)\s\s(?=for)',item) # correctly and split them up so that the for begins
splitto=re.split('(?<=\d)\s\s(?=to)',item) # a cell
if len(splitfor)>1:
print "\n\n\nfor detected\n\n"
string.remove(item)
string.insert(itemind,splitfor[0])
string.insert(itemind+1,splitfor[1])
elif len(splitto)>1:
print "\n\n\nto detected\n\n"
string.remove(item)
string.insert(itemind,splitto[0])
string.insert(itemind+1,splitto[1])
def analyze(x):
#input should be a string of content
#target values are nomills,levytype,term,yearcom,yeardue
clean=cleancommas(x)
countylist=clean.split(',')
emptystrip=filter(lambda a: a != '',countylist)
empt2strip=filter(lambda a: a != ' ', emptystrip)
singstrip=filter(lambda a: a != '\' \'',empt2strip)
quotestrip=filter(lambda a: a !='\" \"',singstrip)
splitforstos(quotestrip)
distd=districtatize(quotestrip)
print '\n\ndistrictized\n\n',distd
county = distd[0]
for x in distd[1:]:
if len(x)>8:
district=x[0]
vote1=x[1]
votemil=x[2]
spaceindex=[m.start() for m in re.finditer(' ', votemil)][-1]
vote2=votemil[:spaceindex]
mills=votemil[spaceindex+1:]
votetype=x[4]
numyears=x[6]
yearcom=x[8]
yeardue=x[10]
reason=x[11]
data = [filename,county,district, vote1, vote2, mills, votetype, numyears, yearcom, yeardue, reason]
print "data",data
else:
print "x\n\n",x
district=x[0]
vote1=x[1]
votemil=x[2]
spaceindex=[m.start() for m in re.finditer(' ', votemil)][-1]
vote2=votemil[:spaceindex]
mills=votemil[spaceindex+1:]
votetype=x[4]
special=x[5]
splitspec=special.split(' ')
try:
forind=[i for i,j in enumerate(splitspec) if j=='for'][0]
numyears=splitspec[forind+1]
yearcom=splitspec[forind+6]
except:
forind=[i for i,j in enumerate(splitspec) if j=='commencing'][0]
numyears=None
yearcom=splitspec[forind+2]
yeardue=str(x[6])[-4:]
reason=x[7]
data = [filename,county,district,vote1,vote2,mills,votetype,numyears,yearcom,yeardue,reason]
print "data other", data
openfile=csv.writer(open('out.csv','a'),delimiter=',', quotechar='|',quoting=csv.QUOTE_MINIMAL)
openfile.writerow(data)
# call the file like so: python tax.py 2007May8Tax.csv
filename = sys.argv[1] #the file is the first argument
f=open(filename,'r')
contents=f.read() #entire csv as string
#find index of every instance of the word county
separators=[m.start() for m in re.finditer('\w+\sCOUNTY',contents)] #alternative implementation in regex
# split contents into sections by county
# analyze each section and append to out.csv
for x,y in enumerate(separators):
try:
data = contents[y:separators[x+1]]
except:
data = contents[y:]
analyze(data)
is there a more robust method of approaching this problem rather than simple string processing?
Not really.
What I had in mind was more of a fuzzy logic approach for trying to pin which field an item was, which could handle the inputs being a little arbitrary. How would you approach this problem?
After a ton of analysis and programming, it won't be significantly better than what you've got.
Reading stuff prepared by people requires -- sadly -- people-like brains.
You can mess with NLTK to try and do a better job, but it doesn't work out terribly well either.
You don't need a radically new approach. You need to streamline the approach you have.
For example.
district=x[0]
vote1=x[1]
votemil=x[2]
spaceindex=[m.start() for m in re.finditer(' ', votemil)][-1]
vote2=votemil[:spaceindex]
mills=votemil[spaceindex+1:]
votetype=x[4]
numyears=x[6]
yearcom=x[8]
yeardue=x[10]
reason=x[11]
data = [filename,county,district, vote1, vote2, mills, votetype, numyears, yearcom, yeardue, reason]
print "data",data
Might be improved by using a named tuple.
Then build something like this.
data = SomeSensibleName(
district= x[0],
vote1=x[1], ... etc.
)
So that you're not creating a lot of intermediate (and largely uninformative) loose variables.
Also, keep looking at your analyze function (and any other function) to pull out the various "pattern matching" rules. The idea is that you'll examine a county's data, step through a bunch of functions until one matches the pattern; this will also create the named tuple. You want something like this.
for p in ( some, list, of, functions ):
match= p(data)
if match:
return match
Each function either returns a named tuple (because it liked the row) or None (because it didn't like the row).