--- a/c/utils.cpp	Wed Aug 24 19:43:44 2011 -0400
+++ b/c/utils.cpp	Fri Aug 26 19:38:11 2011 -0400
@@ -1,10 +1,50 @@
 #include "utils.hpp"
 
+#include <boost/foreach.hpp>
+
 #include <iostream>
 #include <fstream>
+#include <sstream>
 
 using namespace std;
 
+vector<vector<float> > loadNumbers(const string& filename, const string& separator /* = " " */) {
+  ifstream in(filename.c_str());
+  ::openCheck(in, filename, "loadNumbers");
+  vector<vector<float> > result;
+
+  while (!in.eof()) {
+    string line = ::getlineComment(in);
+    vector<string> tokens;
+    ::split(tokens, line, separator);
+    vector<float> numbers;
+    BOOST_FOREACH(string s, tokens)
+      numbers.push_back(::toInt(s));
+    if (!numbers.empty())
+      result.push_back(numbers);
+  }
+
+  return result;
+}
+
+int toInt(const std::string& s) { int i; fromString(i, s); return i;} //atoi
+
+float toFloat(const std::string& s) { float x; fromString(x, s); return x;}// lexical_cast<float>(s)
+
+double toDouble(const std::string& s) { double x; fromString(x, s); return x;}
+
+string getlineComment(ifstream& f) {
+  string s;
+  getline(f, s);
+  while ((!f.eof()) && (s[0] == ::commentChar)) {
+    getline(f, s);
+  }
+  
+  if (s[0] == ::commentChar)
+    s.clear();
+  return s;
+}
+
 void openWriteScientificPrecision(ofstream& out, const string& filename, const int& precision) {
   ::openWritePrecision(out, filename, precision);
   out.setf(ios::scientific);