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3rd chunk of `book/loading_data.md`
37e924f13c5fcd322728565b7301a2c159d0dcf3878188170000000100000b95
# => ───┴──────────┴───────────┴───────────
```

That _almost_ looks correct. It looks like there's an extra space there. Let's [`trim`](/commands/docs/str_trim.md) that extra space:

```nu
open people.txt | lines | split column "|" | str trim
# => ───┬─────────┬─────────┬──────────
# =>  # │ column1 │ column2 │ column3
# => ───┼─────────┼─────────┼──────────
# =>  0 │ Octavia │ Butler  │ Writer
# =>  1 │ Bob     │ Ross    │ Painter
# =>  2 │ Antonio │ Vivaldi │ Composer
# => ───┴─────────┴─────────┴──────────
```

Not bad. The [`split`](/commands/docs/split.md) command gives us data we can use. It also goes ahead and gives us default column names:

```nu
open people.txt | lines | split column "|" | str trim | get column1
# => ───┬─────────
# =>  0 │ Octavia
# =>  1 │ Bob
# =>  2 │ Antonio
# => ───┴─────────
```

We can also name our columns instead of using the default names:

```nu
open people.txt | lines | split column "|" first_name last_name job | str trim
# => ───┬────────────┬───────────┬──────────
# =>  # │ first_name │ last_name │ job
# => ───┼────────────┼───────────┼──────────
# =>  0 │ Octavia    │ Butler    │ Writer
# =>  1 │ Bob        │ Ross      │ Painter
# =>  2 │ Antonio    │ Vivaldi   │ Composer
# => ───┴────────────┴───────────┴──────────
```

Now that our data is in a table, we can use all the commands we've used on tables before:

```nu
open people.txt | lines | split column "|" first_name last_name job | str trim | sort-by first_name
# => ───┬────────────┬───────────┬──────────
# =>  # │ first_name │ last_name │ job
# => ───┼────────────┼───────────┼──────────
# =>  0 │ Antonio    │ Vivaldi   │ Composer
# =>  1 │ Bob        │ Ross      │ Painter
# =>  2 │ Octavia    │ Butler    │ Writer
# => ───┴────────────┴───────────┴──────────
```

There are other commands you can use to work with strings:

- [`str`](/commands/docs/str.md)
- [`lines`](/commands/docs/lines.md)

There is also a set of helper commands we can call if we know the data has a structure that Nu should be able to understand. For example, let's open a Rust lock file:
Title: Parsing Data into Tables and Using String Commands
Summary
This section further explains parsing string data into tables and demonstrates how to name columns for better organization. It uses the 'split column' command along with custom column names. It showcases the usage of 'str trim' and then sorts by the 'first_name' column using 'sort-by'. The section also mentions other commands like 'str' and 'lines' for string manipulation and introduces the concept of using helper commands when data has a structure Nu can understand, leading to an example of opening a Rust lock file.