def dread(infile, cols):
    """
     reads in specimen, tr, dec, inc int into data[].  position of
     tr, dec, inc, int determined by cols[]
    """
    data = []
    f = open(infile, 'r')
    for line in f.readlines():
        tmp = line.split()
        rec = tmp[0], float(tmp[cols[0]]), float(tmp[cols[1]]), float(tmp[
            cols[2]]), float(tmp[cols[3]])
        data.append(rec)
    f.close()
    return data
