File handling snippet.pde

/* May 1 2010 
   Processing code to read delimited data from a file and load columns
   into arrays.
*/

BufferedReader reader;
String[] lines, row;
int i, j, sumColumn;
String[][] data = new String[7][32]; // adjust to array size

void setup() {
  // do regular setup stuff
  // ...

  // read data file into the 'lines' array
  lines = loadStrings("FILE.txt");     

  // split lines array into a two-dimensional 'data' array
  for (i = 0; i < lines.length; i++) {
    lines[i] = trim(lines[i]);
    row = split(lines[i], "\t");
    for (j = 0; j < row.length; j++) {
      data[j][i] = row[j];
    }
  }

} // end void setup

// Pass desired column to a function that does...
  int[] dataColumn = new int[lines.length];
  
  for (i=0; i < lines.length-1; i++) {
    dataColumn[i] = int(data[column][i+1]);
  }

// Then deal with dataColumn as desired
// Could handle row-by-by-row data similarly