Sorry, I realise the original post maybe wasn't the clearest!

I know how to write to txt files using a record. After data has been written to a txt file I need to be able to read the data from the file back in to some other data structure in the program so that I can sort the data. I can read the data back into a record but what sort of data structure do you think would be the best, and is it able to be sorted?

This data can be read back into records, but how then do I select the data I want to sort, and sort it.
For Example:
Name Person A Person B Person C Person D Person E
Heat 1 1 1 2 2
Time 10 15 20 12 18

I want to select the people in heat 1 (Person A, B and C) and then sort them by Time.What would be the best way to do this?

Or more simply, if the competitors are already in order by time (with the fields Name, Heat, Position, Time) when written to file, how would I select all the competitors in who have Heat = 1?

Thanks