read timings from file to compare

[fawzia]

I want to read from file like this an find the winner for 500m, 1000m, and so on

But how can I compare the timings column by column( or extract the timing to compare)

Or do I have to declare timing variable as character
Name ;Club ;Age ;500 ;1000 ;1500 ;2000
Alastair Heathcote ;Army RC ;29 ;01:29.7 ;03:00.2 ;04:32.6 ;06:03.0
Richard Egington ;Leander Club ;27 ;01:29.0 ;02:57.9 ;04:26.6 ;05:53.3

[horace1]

I want to read from file like this an find the winner for 500m, 1000m, and so on

But how can I compare the timings column by column( or extract the timing to compare)

Or do I have to declare timing variable as character
Name ;Club ;Age ;500 ;1000 ;1500 ;2000
Alastair Heathcote ;Army RC ;29 ;01:29.7 ;03:00.2 ;04:32.6 ;06:03.0
Richard Egington ;Leander Club ;27 ;01:29.0 ;02:57.9 ;04:26.6 ;05:53.3

assuming you are using C the simplest way is probably to break a line into tokens usinfg strtok
http://www.cplusplus.com/ref/cstring/strtok.html

for example you could start so

#include <stdio.h>
#include <time.h>
#include <string.h>
 
int main()
{
    FILE *infile;
    char line[100];
    // open file
    if((infile=fopen("data","r")) == NULL) 
        { printf("fileopen fail"); exit(1); }
    fgets(line, 100, infile);               // read line of text
    char *name = strtok(line, ";");         // get name
    printf("name %s\n", name);
    char *club = strtok(NULL, ";");         // get club
    printf("club %s\n", club);
    char *restOfLine = strtok(NULL, "\n");  // get rest line with age, times ,etc
    int age;
    struct tm time={0};
    // get age and time for 500 metres
    sscanf(restOfLine, "%d ;%d:%d.%d", &age, &time.tm_hour, &time.tm_min, &time.tm_sec);
    printf("age %d time %s\n", age, asctime(&time));
     system("pause");
}
 

when run gives
name Alastair Heathcote
club Army RC
age 29 time Sun Jan 00 01:29:07 1900