CODEWITHSUNDEEP
python
nutella
nutella

Reputation: 99

After turning a list into string I cannot get [0]

I read a text file in python as:

anagram = []
with open('test.txt', 'r') as text_file:
    for lines in text_file:
        anagram.append(lines.strip().split(','))
print (anagram)

where it prints:

[['pot', 'top'], ['room', ' door'], ['wink', ' true']]

when I ask for the type it says class list. So I run the following code to convert it into string:

alist = str(anagram[0])

however, when I run the following code: 

print (alist[0])

I get the following result:

[

instead, I want to get the word pot.

How can I do that?

Upvotes: 1

Views: 42

Answers (2)

jfowkes
jfowkes

Reputation: 1565

If we run these lines in a terminal:

>>> anagram = [['pot', 'top'], ['room', ' door'], ['wink', ' true']]
>>> alist = str(anagram[0])
>>> alist
"['pot', 'top']"
>>> alist[0]
'['

You can see that the line alist = str(anagram[0]) is converting the first list in anagram into a string. Then alist[0] is getting the first character from that string: [.

Just remove the str and you will get the list: 

alist = anagram[0]

Upvotes: 1

Pablo Paglilla
Pablo Paglilla

Reputation: 366

Remove the string casting altogether. It turns the list to it's string representation, "['pot', 'top']". It's first character is indeed '['.

This will print what you're looking for:

alist = anagram[0]
print(alist[0])

Upvotes: 2

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