Refs #8509 Fixed skipping calculation and fixed other various errors

The calculation of how much was skipped was wrong as i was skipping over lines that were neither data or invalid wihtout taking note of them, a new conter was added - validRows - in order to keep track of how many valid lines there have been consecutively (data or not). This is then used instead of rowsToMatch when calculating numToSkip.

Corrected spelling of "Column" from "Collumn" in many places.

Fixed the bad line check to allow + and - as it had not been updated when they were classed as allowed leading characters

Refactored some of the unit test in order to allow the tests that don't use SaveAscii directly to access a correct absolute path.

Code/Mantid/Framework/DataHandling/src/LoadAscii2.cpp

@@ -190,12 +190,12 @@ namespace Mantid
       }
       else if (badLine(line))
       {
-        throw std::runtime_error("Line " + boost::lexical_cast<std::string>(m_lineNo) + ": Unexpected character found at beginning of line. Lines must either be a single integer, a list of numeric values, blank, or a text line beginning with the specified comment indicator:" + m_comment +".");
+        throw std::runtime_error("Line " + boost::lexical_cast<std::string>(m_lineNo) + ": Unexpected character found at beginning of line. Lines must either be a single integer, a list of numeric values, blank, or a text line beginning with the specified comment indicator: " + m_comment +".");
       }
       else
       {
         //strictly speaking this should never be hit, but just being sure
-        throw std::runtime_error("Line " + boost::lexical_cast<std::string>(m_lineNo) + ": Unknown format at line. Lines must either be a single integer, a list of numeric values, blank, or a text line beginning with the specified comment indicator:" + m_comment +".");
+        throw std::runtime_error("Line " + boost::lexical_cast<std::string>(m_lineNo) + ": Unknown format at line. Lines must either be a single integer, a list of numeric values, blank, or a text line beginning with the specified comment indicator: " + m_comment +".");
       }
     }
 
@@ -257,7 +257,7 @@ namespace Mantid
       processHeader(file);
       if (m_baseCols == 0 || m_baseCols > 4 || m_baseCols < 2)
       {
-        //first find the first data set and set that as the template for the number of data collumns we expect from this file
+        //first find the first data set and set that as the template for the number of data columns we expect from this file
         while( getline(file,line) && (m_baseCols == 0 || m_baseCols > 4 || m_baseCols < 2))
         {
           //std::string line = line;
@@ -293,7 +293,7 @@ namespace Mantid
         //make sure some valid data has been found to set the amount of columns, and the file isn't at EOF
         if (m_baseCols > 4 || m_baseCols < 2 || file.eof())
         {
-          throw std::runtime_error("No valid data in file, check separator settings or number of collumns per bin.");
+          throw std::runtime_error("No valid data in file, check separator settings or number of columns per bin.");
         }
 
         //start from the top again, this time filling in the list
@@ -321,6 +321,7 @@ namespace Mantid
         // Have a guess where the data starts. Basically say, when we have say "rowsToMatch" lines of pure numbers
         // in a row then the line that started block is the top of the data
         size_t matchingRows = 0;
+        int validRows = 0;
         size_t blankRows = 0;
         int row = 0;
         std::string line;
@@ -338,13 +339,15 @@ namespace Mantid
             if (badLine(line))
             {
               matchingRows = 0;
+              validRows = 0;
               continue;
             }
 
             //a skipped line is a valid non-data line this shouldn't be counted as a matching line
             //but neither should it reset the matching counter
             if (skipLine(line,true))
             {
+              ++validRows;
               continue;
             }
             if (std::isdigit(line.at(0)) || line.at(0) == '-' || line.at(0) == '+')
@@ -356,6 +359,7 @@ namespace Mantid
                 //there were more separators than there should have been,
                 //which isn't right, or something went rather wrong
                 matchingRows = 0;
+                validRows = 0;
                 continue;
               }
               else if (lineCols != 1)
@@ -367,6 +371,7 @@ namespace Mantid
                 catch(boost::bad_lexical_cast&)
                 {
                   matchingRows = 0;
+                  validRows = 0;
                   continue;
                 }
                 //a size of 1 is most likely a spectra ID so ignore it, a value of 2, 3 or 4 is a valid data set
@@ -376,21 +381,29 @@ namespace Mantid
             {
               //line wasn't valid
               matchingRows = 0;
+              validRows = 0;
               continue;
             }
           }
           else
           {
             //an empty line is legitimate but make sure there aren't too many in sucession as we need to see data
             ++matchingRows;
+            ++validRows;
             ++blankRows;
             if (blankRows >= rowsToMatch)
             {
               matchingRows = 1;
+              validRows = 1;
             }
             continue;
           }
 
+          if (numCols == 0 && lineCols != 1)
+          {
+            numCols = lineCols;
+          }
+
           //to reduce the chance of finding problems later,
           //the concurrent data should also have the same nubmer of columns
           //if the data has a different number of columns to the previous lines
@@ -399,11 +412,13 @@ namespace Mantid
           {
             //line is valid increment the counter
             ++matchingRows;
+            ++validRows;
           }
           else
           {
             numCols = lineCols;
             matchingRows = 1;
+            validRows = 1;
           }
         }
         // if the file does not have more than rowsToMatch + skipped lines, it will stop 
@@ -416,16 +431,16 @@ namespace Mantid
         //save some time in setcolumns as we've found the base columns
         if (numCols > 4 || numCols < 2)
         {
-          throw std::runtime_error("No valid data in file, check separator settings or number of collumns per bin.");
+          throw std::runtime_error("No valid data in file, check separator settings or number of columns per bin.");
         }
         m_baseCols = numCols;
         // Seek the file pointer back to the start.
         // NOTE: Originally had this as finding the stream position of the data and then moving the file pointer
         // back to the start of the data. This worked when a file was read on the same platform it was written
         // but failed when read on a different one due to underlying differences in the stream translation.
         file.seekg(0,std::ios::beg);
-        // We've read the header plus the number of rowsToMatch
-        numToSkip = row - rowsToMatch;
+        // We've read the header plus a number of validRows
+        numToSkip = row - validRows;
       }
       int i(0);
       m_lineNo = 0;
@@ -453,7 +468,7 @@ namespace Mantid
       //check for E and DX
       switch (m_baseCols)
       {
-        // if only 2 collumns X and Y in file, E = 0 is implicit when constructing workspace, omit DX
+        // if only 2 columns X and Y in file, E = 0 is implicit when constructing workspace, omit DX
       case 3:
         {
           //E in file, include it, omit DX
@@ -552,12 +567,12 @@ namespace Mantid
     /**
     * Return true if the line doesn't start wiht a valid character.
     * @param[in] line :: The line to be checked
-    * @return :: True if the line doesn't start wiht a valid character.
+    * @return :: True if the line doesn't start with a valid character.
     */
     bool LoadAscii2::badLine(const std::string & line) const
     {
       // Empty or comment
-      return (!std::isdigit(line.at(0)) && line.at(0) != m_comment.at(0));
+      return (!(std::isdigit(line.at(0)) || line.at(0) == '-' || line.at(0) == '+') && line.at(0) != m_comment.at(0));
     }
 
     /**