code: import numpy,csv
  
  def csv(infile,delimiter=','):
      '''reads csv with arbitrary delimiter, returns numpy array of strings'''
      with open(infile) as f:
          rv = [ l.strip().split(delimiter) for l in f
                  if l.strip()                            # no empty lines
                  and not l.startswith('#')               # no comments
              ]
          width = max(map(len,rv))                        # make array rectangular
          for l in rv:
              for i in range(len(l),width):
                  l.append('')
      return numpy.array(rv).transpose()
  
  def tsv(infile):
      return csv(infile,'\t')
  
apis: numpy.array