convert a text from a file to a list of strings in python

Question

I want to read a text file and extract each word from all lines to make a list of strings like below:

['Arise', 'But', 'It', 'Juliet', 'Who', 'already', 'and', 'breaks', 'east',
'envious', 'fair', 'grief', 'is', 'kill', 'light', 'moon', 'pale', 'sick',
'soft', 'sun', 'the', 'through', 'what', 'window', 'with', 'yonder']

I wrote this code:

fname = raw_input("Enter file name: ")
fh = open(fname)
lst = list()
for line in fh:
    lst.append(line.split())
print lst
print lst.sort()

when I sort it in the end it gives nothing but a None. I get this unexpected result!

[['But', 'soft', 'what', 'light', 'through', 'yonder', 'window', 'breaks'],
['It', 'is', 'the', 'east', 'and', 'Juliet', 'is', 'the', 'sun'], ['Arise', 
'fair', 'sun', 'and', 'kill', 'the', 'envious', 'moon'], ['Who', 'is',
'already', 'sick', 'and', 'pale', 'with', 'grief']]
None

I am totally lost. What I am doing wrong?

Its a plane text file.But soft what light through yonder window breaks It is the east and Juliet is the sun Arise fair sun and kill the envious moon Who is already sick and pale with grief — mGm
– mGm, Commented May 12, 2016 at 21:43

Fabricator · Accepted Answer · 2016-05-12 21:47:26Z

3

.split() returns a list. So you are appending the returned list to lst. Instead you want to concat the 2 lists:

lst += line.split()

.sort() sorts the array in place, and does not return the sorted array. You can either use

print sorted(lst)

or

lst.sort()
print lst

edited May 12, 2016 at 21:47

answered May 12, 2016 at 21:37

Fabricator

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3 Comments

pzp Over a year ago

An alternative to the concatenation operator is the equivalent list.extend().

mGm Over a year ago

But then lst.sort() gives nothing but None.

Fabricator Over a year ago

@Mehmood, .sort() sorts your list in place, and does not return the sorted list

Community · Accepted Answer · 2017-05-23 11:52:56Z

3

Use extend instead of append,

lst = list()

fname = raw_input("Enter file name: ")
with open(fname) as fh:
    for line in fh:
        lst.extend(line.rstrip.split()) # `rstrip` removes trailing whitespace characters, like `\n`

print(lst)
lst.sort() # Sort the items of the list in place
print(lst)

Python - append vs. extend

append: Appends object at end.
extend: Extends list by appending elements from the iterable.

edited May 23, 2017 at 11:52

CommunityBot

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answered May 12, 2016 at 21:46

SparkAndShine

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Comments

pzp · Accepted Answer · 2016-05-12 21:47:07Z

1

Read the entire file with file.read() and split that string wherever there is whitespace with str.split():

with open(raw_input("Enter file name: "), 'r') as f:
    words = f.read().split()
print words
print sorted(words)

answered May 12, 2016 at 21:47

pzp

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3 Comments

mGm Over a year ago

I am limited to use only split(), append() and sort() commands.

pzp Over a year ago

@Mehmood you said you were limited in the functions you can use, but then you posted an answer that completely copied my method. What gives?

mGm Over a year ago

You didn't use append() method, rather you used nice programming skills, which I hope to achieve this mastery some day. I need to write the code in a simple way using above mentioned commands, The programm should also exclude repetitive strings in the list.

mGm · Accepted Answer · 2016-05-12 22:13:36Z

0

Finally, I got it. Here is what I want.

fname = raw_input("Enter file name: ")
fh = open(fname).read().split()
lst = list()
for word in fh:
    if word in lst:
        continue
    else:
        lst.append(word)
print sorted(lst)

answered May 12, 2016 at 22:13

mGm

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1 Comment

SparkAndShine Over a year ago

set is faster. That is all you need, print(sorted(set(open(fname).read().split())))

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