Automate text formatting in Python

Question

I have a txt file containing a list of country codes for each line. The format is like this:

AL
DZ
AS
AO
AI
BS
BB
BY
BJ
BA

I would like to format the text using Python, adding quotation marks for each country code, followed by a comma.

'AL',
'DZ',
'AS',
'AO',
'AI'

4

What have you tried so far? – Daweo Jul 27 '21 at 09:34

Piotr Nowakowski · Answer 1 · 2021-07-27T12:07:16.110

0

You can do it like that

with open('untitled.txt', 'r') as file:
    output =[]
    for l in file:
        output.append("'"+l.strip()+"',\n")

edited Jul 27 '21 at 12:07

answered Jul 27 '21 at 09:50

Piotr Nowakowski

376
1
11

As with one of the other solutions, this will generate a redundant comma at the end – Jul 27 '21 at 11:09
As far as i understanded author wanted a coma at the end of each line – Piotr Nowakowski Jul 27 '21 at 11:12
Not according to the sample output he shows in his question – Jul 27 '21 at 11:20
sorry You are right I adjusted anserw thanks – Piotr Nowakowski Jul 27 '21 at 11:23
Now there won't be any commas! – Jul 27 '21 at 11:48

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 27 '21 at 09:59

Well, it is an unorthodox way to do that task in python, but if you want to do it with the fewest line only with stantard libs, than you can use the inputfile lib as follows:

$ cat test.txt 
AL
DZ
AS
AO
AI
BS
BB
BY
BJ
BA
$ python3
Python 3.8.10 (default, Jun  2 2021, 10:49:15) 
[GCC 9.4.0] on linux
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import fileinput
>>> for line in fileinput.input("test.txt", inplace=True):
...     print(line.replace(line, f"'{line.strip()}',"))
... 
>>> 

$ cat test.txt 
'AL',
'DZ',
'AS',
'AO',
'AI',
'BS',
'BB',
'BY',
'BJ',
'BA',
$

Unfortunately that results in a redundant trailing comma – Jul 27 '21 at 10:31 — , Jul 27 '21 at 10:31

score 0 · Accepted Answer · 2021-07-27T13:39:05.780

0

I would do it like this:-

with open('flat.txt') as txt:
    cc = []
    for line in txt:
        cc.append("'"+line.rstrip('\n')+"'")
    print(',\n'.join(cc))

Another technique that also include writing to another file could look like this:-

with open('flatin.txt') as txtin:
    with open('flatout.txt', 'w') as txtout:
        txtout.write(',\n'.join(
            "'" + line.rstrip('\n') + "'" for line in txtin) + '\n')

edited Jul 27 '21 at 13:39

answered Jul 27 '21 at 10:02

I forgot to mention that the output should be another txt file – Stefano Mauro Jul 27 '21 at 10:11
Do you want me to write that part too? – Jul 27 '21 at 10:35
That would be ideal, yes – Stefano Mauro Jul 27 '21 at 10:40
1

Quite right @Timus. I originally had the list comprehension declared outside the join() (into a temporary variable) then copied and pasted without thinking it through. Thanks for highlighting my error. I will edit the code – Jul 27 '21 at 13:38

Automate text formatting in Python

3 Answers3