Looping through list in python to create multiple files

Question

I've been messing around with lists and creating files from a list. The below works fine but I'm sure that there is a better and cleaner way for doing this. I understand the concept of a loop but can't find a specific example which I could remodel to fit what I am doing. Please could someone please point me in the right direction of looping my items list through the f.write code only the once, to generate the files that I'm after.

    items = [ "one", "two", "three" ]

    f = open (items[0] + " hello_world.txt", "w")
    f.write("This is my first line of code")
    f.write("\nThis is my second line of code with " + items[0] + " the first item in my list")
    f.write ("\nAnd this is my last line of code")

    f = open (items[1] + " hello_world.txt", "w")
    f.write("This is my first line of code")
    f.write("\nThis is my second line of code with " + items[1] + " the first item in my list")
    f.write ("\nAnd this is my last line of code")

    f = open (items[2] + " hello_world.txt", "w")
    f.write("This is my first line of code")
    f.write("\nThis is my second line of code with " + items[2] + " the first item in my list")
    f.write ("\nAnd this is my last line of code")
    f.close()

Inbar Rose · Accepted Answer · 2013-11-11 11:09:53Z

16

You can use a for loop and a with statement like this. The advantage of using with statement is that, you dont have to explicitly close the files or worry about the cases where there is an exception.

items = ["one", "two", "three"]

for item in items:
    with open("{}hello_world.txt".format(item), "w") as f:
        f.write("This is my first line of code")
        f.write("\nThis is my second line of code with {} the first item in my list".format(item))
        f.write("\nAnd this is my last line of code")

edited Nov 11, 2013 at 11:09

Inbar Rose

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answered Nov 11, 2013 at 10:34

thefourtheye

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1 Comment

geomiles Over a year ago

This works just as great as the above answer but perhaps is a little more friendlier on the kinda code that I want to add. Cheers

Inbar Rose · Accepted Answer · 2013-11-11 10:36:32Z

2

Regular for loop - with some optimizing.

Data:

items = ["one", "two", "three" ]
content = "This is the first line of code\nThis is my second line of code with %s the first item in my list\nAnd this is my last line of code"

Loop:

for item in items:
    with open("%s_hello_world.txt" % item, "w") as f:
        f.write(content % item)

answered Nov 11, 2013 at 10:36

Inbar Rose

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1 Comment

geomiles Over a year ago

This worked great, thank you very much. I guessed that there would be a for statement in there somewhere but it just a matter of knowing where to put it. Cheers again

Srinivas Reddy Thatiparthy · Accepted Answer · 2013-11-11 12:01:56Z

2

You should use a for loop

for item in  [ "one", "two", "three" ]:
    f = open (item + " hello_world.txt", "w")
    f.write("This is my first line of code")
    f.write("\nThis is my second line of code with " + item  + " the first item in my list")
    f.write ("\nAnd this is my last line of code")
    f.close()

edited Nov 11, 2013 at 12:01

answered Nov 11, 2013 at 10:34

Srinivas Reddy Thatiparthy

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1 Comment

thefourtheye Over a year ago

@geomiles The for statement line should have a : at the end.

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