PRO my_read_ascii, filename, array, ncolumn, nskip=nskip

; PURPOSE:
;	read ASCII file data.   This version only read numbers.
;	It does not work if there are strings in the ASCII file.
;
; INPUT:
;	filename - string, the file to read.
;	ncolumn - number of columns to read.  Could be smaller than 
;		the real number of columns in the file, but cannot
;		be larger.
;	
; OUTPUT:
;	array - an ncolumn * nrow 2D array.  It will always be a 
;		2D array, even if ncolumn=1.  nrow will be the number
;		of rows in the ASCII file.
;
; OPTIONAL INPUT:
;	nskip - skip first nskip rows.  Default is 0.
;
; EXAMPLE:
;	my_read_ascii, 'catalog.cat', cat, 8, nskip=3
;



IF n_elements(nskip) EQ 0 THEN nskip=0
openr, data, filename, /get_lun

dummy = ''
nrow = long(0)


IF nskip NE 0 THEN FOR i=0,nskip-1 DO readf, data, dummy

while not eof(data) do begin
   readf, data, dummy
   nrow = nrow + 1.0d
endwhile

point_lun, data, 0

IF nskip NE 0 THEN FOR i=0,nskip-1 DO readf, data, dummy

IF nrow EQ 0 THEN print, "MY_READ_ASCII: there seem to be no data. will do nothing."
IF nrow EQ 0 THEN goto, skip

A=dblarr(ncolumn)
array = dblarr(ncolumn, nrow)

i = long(0)
while not eof(data) do begin
  readf, data, A
  array[*,i] = A
  i=i+1.0d
endwhile



free_lun, data

return
skip:
end