Question

I have total 1000 txt files which are filled with data. I have copied all of them into a single txt file and have loaded it into my python code as:

data = numpy.loadtxt('C:\data.txt')

This is fine up to this point. Now, what I need is to select every 5th file from those 1000 txt files (i.e. 200 files) and load their combined content into a single variable. I am confused about how to do this.

Need help.

Answer 1

Why not load the files one at a time (assuming the files are data-0000 through data-0999):

datasets = []
for file_number in range(1000):
    datasets.append(numpy.loadtxt("c:\\data-%04d" %(file_number, ))

Then you can get every fifth file with: every_fifth_file = datasets[::5]. See also: Explain Python's slice notation