Load text file as strings using numpy.loadtxt()

Question

I would like to load a big text file (around 1 GB with 3*10^6 rows and 10 - 100 columns) as a 2D np-array containing strings. However, it seems like numpy.loadtxt() onl

Answer 1

There is also read_csv in Pandas, which is fast and supports non-comma column separators and automatic typing by column:

import pandas as pd
df = pd.read_csv('your_file',sep='\t')

It can be converted to a NumPy array if you prefer that type with:

import numpy as np
arr = np.array(df)

This is by far the easiest and most mature text import approach I've come across.