Why not add a second header line that identifies the types of the fields labelled in the first line?
I find it rarely a good idea to change anything in external data files and for sure, allowing the users to change a data-file is courting disaster.

Before you know it, some data is inadvertantly changed and a wrong diagnosis follows.

CountZero

A program should be light and agile, its subroutines connected like a string of pearls. The spirit and intent of the program should be retained throughout. There should be neither too little or too much, neither needless loops nor useless variables, neither lack of structure nor overwhelming rigidity." - The Tao of Programming, 4.1 - Geoffrey James

In reply to Re^2: A generic biomedical data processing library by CountZero
in thread A generic biomedical data processing library by spiros

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