CODEWITHSUNDEEP
python
Yax
Yax

Reputation: 2189

Python "SyntaxError: invalid token" on numbers starting with 0 (zeroes)

I know someone might think this question has been answered here but it doesn't have answer to what I want to achieve.

I have list of phone numbers, a very large one, and a whole lot of them starts with 08 and there is a lot of duplication, which is what I am trying to remove. Now I need to put them in a list or set so that I can use them in my program but it returns Invalid token as shown in the picture below:

enter image description here

Python assumes anything that starts with 0 as octal. How do I device a mean to bypass this and have these numbers in a list and then in a set?

Upvotes: 4

Views: 7596

Answers (2)

EvenLisle
EvenLisle

Reputation: 4812

If you need to have them prepended by 08, use strings instead of ints.

a = ["08123","08234","08123"]
a = list(set(a)) # will now be ["08123","08234"]

Since (as you say) you don't have an easy way of surrounding the numerous numbers with quotes, go to http://www.regexr.com/ and enter the following:

Expression: ([0-9]+)

Text: Your numbers

Substitution (expandable pane at the bottom of the screen: "$&"

Upvotes: 2

Haifeng Zhang
Haifeng Zhang

Reputation: 31905

read your phone input file, save each phone as string to a set, then the duplicates will be removed due to set only hold unique elements, and you can do further work on them.

def get_unique_phones_set():
    phones_set = set()
    with open("/path/to/your/duplicated_phone_file", "r") as inputs:
        for phone in inputs:
            # phone is read as a string
            phones_set.add(phone.strip())
    return phones_set

Upvotes: 2

Related Questions