Reading multiple lines from txt and storing to multiple lists in Python

Question

I have a txt file with multiple strings on each line as below:

Hamburger: Ground Beef, Onion, Tomato, Bread, Ketchup
Pesto_Chicken: Chicken, Peppers, Pasta, Pesto
Surf_and_Turf: Steak, Fish

I'd like to read it into my program and create a list for each line. Ideally using the first word of each line (ie Hamburger, etc.) as the list name, but that's not critical. I just need to get each line into its own list. So far I can read it in and print to the console, but not sure how to store as a list??

filepath = 'recipes.txt'
with open(filepath) as fp:
   line = fp.readline()
   cnt = 1
   while line: 
       print("Line {}: {}".format(cnt, line.strip()))
       line = fp.readline()
       cnt += 1

Lists don't have names. Dictionaries have keys. Can you display the desired output? — tommy.carstensen
– tommy.carstensen, Commented Dec 9, 2019 at 23:54

ldz · Accepted Answer · 2019-12-09 23:37:28Z

1

First step: split by colon parts = line.split(':')
Second: split the second part by comma to get the list food_list = parts[1].split(',')
Last step: putting it all together in a dict

foods = {} # declare a dict
with open('recipes.txt') as file:
    for line in file:
        parts = line.split(':')
        food_type = parts[0]
        food_list = parts[1].split(',')
        foods[food_type] = food_list

edited Dec 9, 2019 at 23:37

answered Dec 9, 2019 at 23:22

ldz

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2 Comments

brooks08 Over a year ago

Thanks! This makes sense, but I'm getting some errors still. I see that the foods matrix is created, but there's an IndexError: list index out of range at line 6 (foods_list = parts[1].split(':')

ldz Over a year ago

The error message does not match line 6 of the code above. In an unmodified state it runs successfully against the input.

Kalma · Accepted Answer · 2019-12-09 23:27:18Z

0

give a try to the split() method which does exactly what you need.

Get the first word (as title):

parts = line.split(":")
title = parts[0]

then the other words as a list:

words_list = parts[1].split(", ")

answered Dec 9, 2019 at 23:27

Kalma

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