It’s easier to read just numeric data, but reading mixed string and numeric values is certainly very doable.  Here’s an example using your data set.

! read data from file

numrows = 3
numcols = 5
DECLARE DARRAY, DOUBLE, 2, numrows, numcols
! read numeric data (note: strings are set to zero)
OPEN "test.dat"
FOR i, 1, numrows, 1
	FOR j, 1, numcols, 1
		READNEXT x 
		DARRAY(i,j) = x
	NEXT j
NEXT i
CLOSE 

! print results
FOR i, 1, numrows, 1
	FOR j, 1, numcols, 1
		PRINT DARRAY(i,j)
	NEXT j
NEXT i

! read strings from first part of each line
OPEN "test.dat"
READSTRING ROW1$
P1$ = $GETSTRING(ROW1$, 1)
READSTRING ROW2$
P2$ = $GETSTRING(ROW2$, 1)
READSTRING ROW3$
P3$ = $GETSTRING(ROW3$, 1)
CLOSE

PRINT P1$, "  ", DARRAY(1,2), "  ", DARRAY(1,3), "  ", DARRAY(1,4), "  ", DARRAY(1,5)
PRINT P2$, "  ", DARRAY(2,2), "  ", DARRAY(2,3), "  ", DARRAY(2,4), "  ", DARRAY(2,5)
PRINT P3$, "  ", DARRAY(3,2), "  ", DARRAY(3,3), "  ", DARRAY(3,4), "  ", DARRAY(3,5)

Here’s the output:

The ZPL keywords:  READ, READNEXT, READSKIP, & READSTRING offer various methods for getting data from files into the ZPL shell.

Hi Jeff,

thanks a lot for your detailed description. That was very helpfull to me.