Reading a file

[coolman]

Thanks i got it working finally but there one problem if the fields are to far apart in my text file then it dont insert the commas, but if the fields are close to togother den it insert the commas. but most of my text files will alway be far apart so i need some sort function dat need to include the all the white space and bring it close togother but i cant think of anything i been looking up the manual but i dont understand it

NUM,,,|FIRSTNAME|,SURNAME,|course,|
12400	   COOL <to far away>WHATEVER CS
12500	MICHAEL	<to far away> OWEN CS
12600	GEOGE		FANNY	CS
12700	CARMEN		LIGHT	IT
12800	PET		ROOF

so i need to bring the fields close togother as well as inserting the commas,

[coolman]

Thanks i got it working finally but there one problem if the fields are to far apart in my text file then it dont insert the commas, but if the fields are close to togother den it insert the commas. but most of my text files will alway be far apart so i need some sort function dat need to include the all the white space and bring it close togother but i cant think of anything i been looking up the manual but i dont understand it


Code:
NUM,,,|FIRSTNAME|,SURNAME,|course,|
12400 COOL <to far away>WHATEVER CS
12500 MICHAEL <to far away> OWEN CS
12600 GEOGE FANNY CS
12700 CARMEN LIGHT IT
12800 PET ROOF
so i need to bring the fields close togother as well as inserting the commas,

[redhead]

You're not sure this has something todo with either <space> or <tab> seperating the items in your lines ?
The code will only transform spaces into commas, it wont do a thing if theres a <tab>, but this can be fixed by telling the compile() to search for ' |\t' ie:

for line in f.readlines():
    returnline.append(re.compile('( |\t)').sub(',', line[0:-1]))

[coolman]

when i ran the code it just shows blank

[redhead]

hmm.... thats odd:

#!/usr/bin/python
import re             
returnline = []
f = open("List", "r") 
for line in f.readlines(): 
    returnline.append(re.compile('( |\t)').sub(',', line[0:-1]))
for item in returnline:
    print item

> ./test.py
NUM,|FIRSTNAME|,SURNAME,|course,|
------------------------------------------
12400,ERIC,RONNEY,CS
------------------------------------------
12500,MICHAEL,OWEN,CS
------------------------------------------
12600,SCOT,MAN,CS
------------------------------------------
12700,GEOGE,YO,IT
------------------------------------------

[coolman]

thanks its work fully

[coolman]

but it dont work fully

def formate(datafile):
	returnlines = ""
	currentline = datafile.readline()
	while currentline:
		if currentline[0] != ('#'):
			returnlines+= currentline +'\n'
			currentline = datafile.readline()
			return returnlines



def listdata(filename):
	datafile = open(filename, 'r')
	returnlines = []
	for currentline in datafile.readlines():
		if not currentline.startswith('#'):
			returnlines.append(currentline.replace('\n', '').split(','))
			currentline = datafile.readline()
			datafile.close()
			return returnlines


def presentdata(showdata):
	for item in showdata:
		print item
		print '\n'

to exercute the code

>>>datafile = open("StudentList.txt", "r")
>>>eventdata = datafile.readlines()
>>>print eventdata