ValueError: too many values to unpack

[George Sakkis]

On Sep 27, 12:46 pm, Shawn Minisall <trekker... at comcast.net> wrote:
> I am trying to read a few lines of a file with multiple values, the rest
> are single and are reading in fine.
>
> With the multiple value lines, python says this "ValueError: too many
> values to unpack"
>
> I've googled it and it says that happens when you have too few or too
> many strings that don't match with the variables in number your trying
> to assign them too.  Below are the lines in reading in:
>
> line 3 - 19.18    29.15    78.75    212.10
> line 4 - 100    20    410.29
> And this is the code I'm using:
>
>    #read withdrawls from file on line3
>    line = infile.readline()
>      #split withdrawls up
>    withdraw1, withdraw2, withdraw3, withdraw4 = string.split(line, "\t")
>
>    #read deposits from file on line4
>    line = infile.readline()
>    #split deposits up
>    deposit1, deposit2, deposit3 = string.split(line, "\t")
>
> I have 4 strings to match line 3 and 3 to match the 3 on line 4...any
> thoughts?
>
> thx

Just print out the split without unpacking to see how many elements
there are actually present:

    print string.split(line, "\t")

By the way, most functions of the string module are deprecated in
favor of string methods; the above is better written as

    print line.split("\t")


HTH,
George