Aligning columns in Python

Question

I want to read ONLY the fourth and fifth column of this text file

sample.txt

2012-01-01  09:00   San Jose    Men's Clothing  214.05  Amex
2012-01-01  09:00   Fort Worth  Women's Clothing    153.57  Visa
2012-01-01  09:00   San Diego   Music   66.08   Cash

I am able to do this, but the format of the output isn't what I want.

output

Men's Clothing                           214.05
Women's Clothing                           153.57
Music                            66.08

Desired output

Men's Clothing                             214.05
Women's Clothing                           153.57
Music                                       66.08

Here is my code (I used some formatting but it's still not giving me the desired output):

for line in open("sample.txt"):
    strsales=line.split()[-2]
    item=line.split('\t')[3]
    itemsales=item+"{0:>33}".format(strsales)
    print(itemsales)

BoarGules · Accepted Answer · 2018-01-21 12:27:27Z

3

This line:

itemsales=item+"{0:>33}".format(strsales)

is padding out the number to 33 positions. But the length of item is variable, and that is causing your alignment to go out. Look closely and you will see that the unevenness in row 1 and row 2 is 2 positions, and that is exactly the difference in length between Men's Clothing and Women's Clothing. You need to pad out both variables to a constant number of positions. Try this

itemsales = "{0:<33}{1:>18}".format(item,strsales)

answered Jan 21, 2018 at 12:27

BoarGules

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