List index out of range, Does anyone know?

Question

I am working with file tabel.txt and I'm having trouble with this. I want to display data from forth column but I am getting

error: list index out of range

Can anyone help me with this Picture of this tabel.txt

f = open("tabel.txt", 'r') 

for line in f:

a=line.split("\t")    
    print(a[3])

One of the lines doesn't have 3 columns and therefore raises the exception. I bet it's the last one with just a linefeed. TADA! — ElmoVanKielmo, Jun 02 '15 at 14:00
You are splitting by tab, so there aren't 3 columns maybe? third column would be a[2] anyways. — Shane_Yo, Jun 02 '15 at 14:02
possible duplicate of [IndexError messages with python lists and split](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10674609/indexerror-messages-with-python-lists-and-split) — ElmoVanKielmo, Jun 02 '15 at 14:50

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Jun 02 '15 at 14:07

0

you can do this:

f = open("tabel.txt", 'r') 
for line in f:
    a=line.split("\t")  
    if len(a)>3:  
        print(a[3])    
    else:
        print a

This way you can see what is the problem in this line. As said in one of the comments, 99% this is the last line.

answered Jun 02 '15 at 14:07

AvidLearner

4,123
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@karlfel if this is what you were looking for, feel free to accept... :) – AvidLearner Jun 03 '15 at 15:18

konart · Answer 2 · 2015-06-02T14:12:10.290

0

As was noted already - most likely you are missing 4th column at some point. The good practice here would be using try..except if you are not sure about your data:

f = open("tabel.txt", 'r') 
i = 0
for line in f:

    a=line.split("\t")   
    try: 
        print(a[3]) 
    except IndexError:
        print("Empty field at line %s" % str(i))    
    i += 1

edited Jun 02 '15 at 14:12

answered Jun 02 '15 at 14:09

konart

1,714
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it is the 4th column he is missing – AvidLearner Jun 02 '15 at 14:11
Thanks, fixed for truth :D – konart Jun 02 '15 at 14:12

List index out of range, Does anyone know?

2 Answers2