Programically convert a fixed width .dat file with a .fmt file into a .csv file using Python or Python/Pandas -

i'm trying learn python i'm stuck here, appreciated.

i have 2 files.

1 .dat file no column headers fixed width containing multiple rows of data 1 .fmt file contains column headers, column length, , datatype

.dat example:

10ifkdhghs34 12ifkdhghh35 53ifhdhgdf33 

.fmt example:

id,2,n name,8,c code,2,n 

desired output .csv:

id,name,code 10,ifkdhghs,34 12,ifkdhghh,35 53,ifhdhgdf,33 

first, i'd parse format file.

with open("format_file.fmt") f:     # csv.reader parses away commas      # , rows nice lists     reader = csv.reader(f)      # give list of lists looks     # [["id", "2", "n"], ...]     row_definitions = list(reader)  # iterate , unpack headers # gives ["id", "name", "code"] header = [name name, length, dtype in row_definitions] # [2, 8, 2] lengths = [int(length) name, length, dtype in row_definitions]  # define generator (possibly closure) slices  # string bit bit -- yields, example, first  # characters 0 - 2, characters 2 - 10, 8 - 12 def parse_line(line):     start = 0     length in lengths:         yield line[start: start+length]         start = start + length  open(data_file) f:      # iterating on file pointer gives each line separately      # call list on each use of parse_line force generator list      parsed_lines = [list(parse_line(line)) line in data_file]  # prepend header table = [header] + parsed_lines  # use csv module again output csv open("my_output_file.csv", 'w') f:     writer = csv.writer(f)     writer.writerows(table)