CODEWITHSUNDEEP
python
Mr618Worldwide
Mr618Worldwide

Reputation: 1

Index out of range, while trying to create a dictionary in Python

The file students.csv contains a list of students registred for a graduate course in chemistry. Write a function called createStudentDict()that opens this file and populates a dictionary with all of the students. The key should be the student ID which is present in the first column. This student ID key should be recorded as a string. The value should be a list in which the first item is the student's name (should be stored as a string), the second item is the student's age (integer), and the third item is the student's current full-time occupation (string).

Here are the contents of the file :

7373    Walter White    52  Teacher
8274    Skyler White    49  Author
9651    Jesse Pinkman   27  Student
2213    Saul Goodman    43  Lawyer
6666    Gus Fring   54  Chicken Guy
8787    Kim Wexler  36  Lawyer
9999    Tuco Salamanca  53  Drug Lord

I have tried writing the function and running it? I'm a programming beginner so I'm not sure what to put here except that I've defined the function made the try/except block and the code is not running. I am not sure if there are any errors other than the index.

def createStudentDict():
  try:
    #Open the file    
    f=open("students.txt","r")
  except:
    #Print error message if file is not pesent
    print("File is not present")
  #Read the content of the file
  fileContent = f.read()
  #Splits the line by using the split method
  lines = fileContent.split("\n")
  #Create dictionary
  dict = {}
  #Iterate through all the line of the file

  for i in range(0,len(lines)):
    #Split line by using the comma as seperator
    detailList = lines[i].split(',')
    #Create list with the student name, age and profession
    studentDetailList = [detailList[1], int(detailList[2]), detailList[3]]
    #Add or update the item in the dictionary
    dict.update({detailList[0]:studentDetailList})
  return dict
print(createStudentDict())

The exception is :

    Traceback (most recent call last):
      File "C:/Users/Owner/Documents/401 python/JONES ASSIGNMENT 3.py", line 47, in <module>
        print(createStudentDict())
      File "C:/Users/Owner/Documents/401 python/JONES ASSIGNMENT 3.py", line 37, in createStudentDict
        studentDetailList = [detailList[1], int(detailList[2]), detailList[3]]
    IndexError: list index out of range

This is the error I'm receiving. This is the expected output Invoking the function like so: print(createStudentDict()) Should generate the following output:

{'7373': ['Walter White', 52, 'Teacher'], '8274': ['Skyler White', 49, 'Author'], '9651': ['Jesse Pinkman', 27, 'Student'], '2213': ['Saul Goodman', 43, 'Lawyer'], '6666': ['Gus Fring', 54, 'Chicken Guy'], '8787': ['Kim Wexler', 36, 'Lawyer'], '9999': ['Tuco Salamanca', 53, 'Drug Lord']}

Upvotes: 0

Views: 95

Answers (2)

Rotem Tal
Rotem Tal

Reputation: 769

It appears that the CSV doesn't use a comma separator, but a tab one, try this

 detailList = lines[i].split('\t')

Since there is no commas you probably get a list of length 1, which is why you get the index error, for future practice you can try and print variables, or better yet, use an IDE like Pycharm and it's debugging mode

EDIT: To comply with your given example I made the following modifications:

for i in range(0,len(lines)):
    # Set the intervals to hold the same number of spaces
    line = lines[i].replace("    ", "  ")
    # Now all the spaces are double white space, split by double white space
    detailList = line.split('  ')

and the output was

{'7373': ['Walter White', 52, 'Teacher'], '8274': ['Skyler White', 49, 'Author'], '9651': ['Jesse Pinkman', 27, 'Student'], '2213': ['Saul Goodman', 43, 'Lawyer'], '6666': ['Gus Fring', 54, 'Chicken Guy'], '8787': ['Kim Wexler', 36, 'Lawyer'], '9999': ['Tuco Salamanca', 53, 'Drug Lord']}

By the way, notice that you use the variable named dict while dict is a keyword in python, which is a bad practice that could lead to some unexpected behavior, you could rename it to dict1 or result_dict

Upvotes: 4

Sergio Pulgarin
Sergio Pulgarin

Reputation: 929

There are probably bad formatted lines or maybe the CSV header itself that is breaking your loop. Try putting everything inside the for loop in a try / except clause and inside the except print the line so you know which one it is. If it is the header, you can use range(1, len(lines)) to ignore the first one. Also, check Python’s built in CSV processor module. If the file is badly formatted in general, you can manually process the first line to see what's the output of detailList = lines[i].split(','), and change your format or your code accordingly.

Upvotes: 0

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