[Tutor] newbie: Reading text file

[Grant Hagstrom]

Thanks for your help Alan.

I found that when I used the code, it did returne a list but it is riddled
with formatting characters.
My question is, is it possible to strip out multiple characters at once?

started = False
for line in file('mylist.py'):
    if 'jobs' in line and not started:
        jobs = []
        started = True
        continue
    if ']' not in line and started:
        nospaces = line.lstrip()
        no_n = nospaces.strip("\n")          #note the constant
re-variabling
        no_comma = no_n.strip(",")
        no_quote = no_comma.strip("\'")
        jobs.append(no_quote)
    else: print "break"

Thanks,

Grant



On 6/1/07, ALAN GAULD <alan.gauld at btinternet.com> wrote:
>
> Hi Grant,
>
> > I'm a newbie and this is my first script submission to this email list.
> > I was able to parse out the jobs list into a string: "jobs = [ . . ."
> > However, I can't make python interpret that string as the command "jobs
> = [ some list]"
>
> There are ways of doing that but unless you are specifically doing that
> as a challenge it is much easier just to import your py file. When you
> import a module Python will evaluate the contents as Python code
> and the variables in the module become available to you. That way
> you don't need to read the file manually.
>
> The only caveat with the import method is that Python needs to find
> our module so it must either be in the same folder as your python
> script or the folder must be in the sys.path variable. Thus for a general
> solution:
>
> import sys
> sys.path.append('the/folder/where/myfile/lives')
> import myfile    # no .py
> jobs = myfile.jobs
>
> And that should be it. jobs should now contain the same list that
> was in your myfile.py
>
>
> However if you do want todo it the hard way:
>
> > #SCRIPT
> > # open the file and assign it to the variable "thefile"
> > thefile = open("/home/banter/Desktop/mylist.py")
>
> OK To here but....
>
> > # read the file and assign it to the variable "read_thefile"
> > read_thefile = file.read(thefile)
> > # make the file's contents into a string
> > string_thefile = str(read_thefile)
>
> this should simply be
>
> data = thefile.read()
>
> # split that string up into a list
> splitlist = data.split()
>
> # index the list to find the placement of the word 'jobs'
> it_starts = splitlist.index('jobs')
>
> # index the list to find the placement of the ']'
>
> OK Now its getting rather messy. Its probably easier to take a
> completely different approach, something like(untested code!):
>
> started = False
> for line in file(myfile.py'):
>      if 'jobs' in line and not started:
>         jobs = []
>         started = True
>         continue
>     if ']' not in line and started:
>         jobs.append(line')
>     else: break
>
> > are you getting a duplicate copy of this email?
> > I am CCing tutor at python and TOing you . . .
>
> Yes that's the correct procedure. Use ReplyAll in your mail tool
> and all should be well. (although some folks would prefer if you
> just reply to the list, it's a bit of a hot topic! :-)
>
> HTH,
>
> Alan G.
>
> Inbox cluttering up with junk? Clean up with Yahoo! Mail<http://us.rd.yahoo.com/mailuk/taglines/gmail/clean_up/*http://us.rd.yahoo.com/evt=48525/*http://uk.docs.yahoo.com/mail/isp_targeting.html>
> .
>
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