Python - Reading text file into dict

Question

I have to read a text file in python into a dictionary, I have tried several options but I can't get it to work. The format of the text file is the following:

Shop: someshop  
Schedule: from 8:00 to 18:00  
Day: 11:11:2011  
Items Sold: 456  
List of purchases:  
(product, 123, 12:30)    
(product, 123, 12:30)  
(product, 123, 12:30)

I have also tried to use regex, but I can't figure out to get the item on list of purchases.

Here is some code I tried:

d = {}
with open("sometext.txt", "r") as f:
    for line in f:

        (key, val) = line.split(': ')
        d[file] = (key,val)
        print (val)


print d

What's your expected output?

Avinash Raj
– Avinash Raj

2015-03-25 11:58:37 +00:00
Commented Mar 25, 2015 at 11:58 — Avinash Raj
– Avinash Raj, Commented Mar 25, 2015 at 11:58
I have to get the key:value pairs into a dict,

William Smith
– William Smith

2015-03-25 12:06:52 +00:00
Commented Mar 25, 2015 at 12:06 — William Smith
– William Smith, Commented Mar 25, 2015 at 12:06

Martijn Pieters · Accepted Answer · 2015-03-25 12:05:44Z

1

You were almost there; you should use key as the key in the dictionary, not file:

(key, val) = line.split(': ')
d[key] = val.rstrip('\n')

I've added a str.strip() call; presumably you don't need to store the newline at the end of each line.

You'll need to parse the list of purchases separately however, as those don't fit your key: value pattern here. I'm assuming here that it is the last entry in the list:

d = {}
with open("sometext.txt", "r") as f:
    for line in f:
        if line.startswith('List of purchases'):
            purchases = d['List of purchases'] = []
            for line in f:
                info = line.strip('() \n').split(', ')
                purchases.append(info)
            break
        key, val = line.split(': ')
        d[key] = val.rstrip('\n')

This will read the remainder of the file into a separate list when you read the List of purchases line.

Demo:

>>> from io import StringIO
>>> sample = '''\
... Shop: someshop  
... Schedule: from 8:00 to 18:00  
... Day: 11:11:2011  
... Items Sold: 456  
... List of purchases:  
... (product, 123, 12:30)    
... (product, 123, 12:30)  
... (product, 123, 12:30)
... '''
>>> d = {}
>>> with StringIO(sample) as f:
...     for line in f:
...         if line.startswith('List of purchases'):
...             purchases = d['List of purchases'] = []
...             for line in f:
...                 info = line.strip('()\n').split(', ')
...                 purchases.append(info)
...             break
...         key, val = line.split(': ')
...         d[key] = val.rstrip('\n')
... 
>>> d
{'Schedule': 'from 8:00 to 18:00  ', 'List of purchases': [['product', '123', '12:30'], ['product', '123', '12:30'], ['product', '123', '12:30']], 'Day': '11:11:2011  ', 'Shop': 'someshop  ', 'Items Sold': '456  '}
>>> from pprint import pprint
>>> pprint(d)
{'Day': '11:11:2011  ',
 'Items Sold': '456  ',
 'List of purchases': [['product', '123', '12:30'],
                       ['product', '123', '12:30'],
                       ['product', '123', '12:30']],
 'Schedule': 'from 8:00 to 18:00  ',
 'Shop': 'someshop  '}

edited Mar 25, 2015 at 12:05

answered Mar 25, 2015 at 11:58

Martijn Pieters

1.1m326 gold badges4.2k silver badges3.4k bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

2 Comments

William Smith Over a year ago

Thank you for your answer, but i still get this error code "ValueError: need more than 1 value to unpack", when it gets to last key i can't read the values in the last lines.

William Smith Over a year ago

Thank you very much. Thumbs up to you.

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

Python - Reading text file into dict

1 Answer 1

2 Comments

Your Answer

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

1 Answer 1

2 Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Related