How to define the delimeter with readcol

Hi,

I have a table to read into ISIS, which has columns of RXTE observation IDs, X-ray source names and etc., so I have '-' or ',' values in my columns which are not delimeters.  With a command like this : 

(timest,timee)=readcol("data.dat",1,2);

readcol just uses anything it sees as a delimiter (all of the '-' or ',' values), I was wondering how I could make readcol to use only spaces as a delimiter and take e.g. RXTE OBSIDs (which look like : 30062-01-01-00) as a whole into a string array ? .

Also is there a way to make readcol ignore if a value is missing in a column ? for example we have two columns in the first line of the ASCII file and only 1 in the second. I know this is not the ideal way of reading tables, but it would be helpful if there is anything I could use.


thanks a lot, 
tolga


========================
Tolga Güver
Department of Astronomy 
University of Arizona
ice.as.arizona.edu/~tolga
tguver_at_email.domain.hidden933 N Cherry Ave., Rm. N322
Tucson AZ 85721-0065


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