CODEWITHSUNDEEP
python
Luke Bligh
Luke Bligh

Reputation: 27

List program not working

I have written a python program to act as a shopping list or some other list editor. It displays the list as it is, then asks if you want to add something, then asks is you want to see the newest version of the list. Here is the code:

#!/usr/bin/python
import sys
def read():
    f = open("test.txt","r") #opens file with name of "test.txt"
    myList = []
    for line in f:
        myList.append(line)
        print(myList)
    myList = []
    f.close()

def add_to(str):
    newstr = str + "\n"
    f = open("test.txt","a") #opens file with name of "test.txt"
    f.write(newstr)
    f.close()
read()
yes = "yes"
answerone = raw_input("Would you like to add something to the shopping     list?")
if answerone == yes:
    answertwo = raw_input("Please enter an item to go on the list:")
    add_to(bob)
     answerthree = raw_input("Would you like to see your modified list?")
     if answerthree == yes:
        read()
    else:
        sys.exit()
else:
    sys.exit()

When it displays the list it displays it in columns of increasing length. Instead of this, which is how it appears in the text file:

Shopping List
Soap
Washing Up Liquid

It displays it like this:

['Shopping List\n']
['Shopping List\n', 'Soap\n']
['Shopping List\n', 'Soap\n', 'Washing Up Liquid\n']

I was wondering whether anyone could help me understand why it does this, and how to fix it. FYI I am using python 2.6.1

EDIT: Thanks to all who commented and answered. I am now trying to edit the code to make it sort the list into alphabetical order, but it is not working. I have written a piece of test code to try and make it work (this would be in the read() function):

#!usr/bin/python
f = open("test.txt","r") #opens file with name of "test.txt"
myList = []
for line in f:
    myList.append(line)
f.close()
print myList
subList = []
for i in range(1, len(myList)):
    print myList[i]
    subList.append(myList[i])


subList.sort()
print subList

This is the text file:

Test List
ball
apple
cat
digger
elephant

and this is the output:

Enigmatist:PYTHON lbligh$ python test.py
['Test List\n', 'ball\n', 'apple\n', 'cat\n', 'digger\n', 'elephant']
ball

apple

cat

digger

elephant
['apple\n', 'ball\n', 'cat\n', 'digger\n', 'elephant']

Once again, any troubleshooting would be helpful. Thanks

P.S I am now using python 2.7.9

Upvotes: 1

Views: 61

Answers (1)

Antti Haapala -- Слава Україні
Antti Haapala -- Слава Україні

Reputation: 133879

In read, you are printing the whole list after each line read. You just need to print the current line:

def read():
    f = open("test.txt","r") #opens file with name of "test.txt"
    myList = []
    for line in f:
        myList.append(line)
        print(line)
    myList = [] # also you are setting it to empty here
    f.close()

Also, you should be using with statement to ensure the closure of the file; and there is no reason to use myList since you are not returning any changes yet; and you'd want to strip() extra whitespace from the beginning and end of the items, so the minimum would be:

def read():
    with open('test.txt') as f:
        for line in f:
            line = line.strip()
            print line  # this is python 2 print statement

If you need to return a value:

def read():
    my_list = []
    with open('test.txt') as f:
        for line in f:
            line = line.strip()
            my_list.append(line)
            print line

    return my_list

Upvotes: 1

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