.. _examples-meteoinfolab-file_io-read_ascii:

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Read ASCII file
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The ``asciiread()`` function was used to read array data from an ASCII file. Some header lines could
be skiped by setting ``headerlines`` argument. The shape of the array could be set using ``shape``
argument.

Read grid data from ASCII file::

    rain = asciiread('D:/Temp/ascii/SURF_CLI_CHN_PRE_DAY_GRID_0.5-20120702.txt',headerlines=6,shape=(72,128))
    rain1 = rain[::-1,:]
    x = arange1(72, 128, 0.5)
    y = arange1(18, 72, 0.5)
    axesm()
    geoshow('country')
    layer = contourf(x, y, rain1, 20)
    title('Precipitation')
    ylabel('Latitude')
    xlabel('Longitude')
    colorbar(layer)
    
.. image:: ../../../_static/ascii_grid.png
    
Read station data from ASCII file. ``numasciicol()`` and ``numasciirow()`` functions were used
to get column and row number of the file::

    fn = 'D:/Temp/ascii/flood.dat'
    ncol = numasciicol(fn)
    nrow = numasciirow(fn)
    a = asciiread(fn,shape=(nrow,ncol))
    lon = a[:,0]
    lat = a[:,1]
    v = a[:,2]
    axesm()
    geoshow('cn_province', facecolor=(220,220,220), edgecolor=None)
    layer = scatter(lon, lat, v, edge=False, size=2)
    xlim(109.2, 111)
    ylim(19.8, 21.8) 
    title('Flood plain area')
    ylabel('Latitude')
    xlabel('Longitude')
    colorbar(layer)
    
.. image:: ../../../_static/ascii_station.png