python: Read in generic lookup table from tab-separated text file with field-names on top line

not beautiful yet, but here's a start:

lookup={}

fd=open("tab_separated_fields.txt", 'r')

try:

    headers=fd.readline()

    names=headers.split()

    num_fields=len(names)

    print "%d fields in %s" % (num_fields,names)

    for row, line in enumerate(fd,1) :

        print "row %d: line=%s" % (row,line)

        if len(line) > 10:

            values=line.split('\t')

            if len(values) == num_fields:

                lookup[str(row)] = {names[i]:(values[i]).strip() for i in range(num_fields)}

            else:

                print "row %d doesn't have %d values" % (row,num_fields)

finally:

    fd.close()

print lookup

Next, see if csv reader makes it better.
Actually, csv.DictReader.
e.g https://github.com/pargery/csv_utils2/blob/master/SimpleCSVReporter.py