Applescript and ASCII files

[jove]

Hello,

I have chosen to use Applescript Studio to develop a simple application given the main function is to communicate with an external application. The application will be required to read a human readable configuration file (not to edit). The file will be a couple k in size.

What tools are best to read human readable files in Applescript?

The format of the file is simply

element-count as int
{ element-name as string , attribute-count as int { [int, int, int] } }