Python string print formatting

Question

I'm very new to programming & Python. Still currently working on my first program. I had a little bit of help from this forum a week ago or so, but now I'm stuck on another part of the program so I'd need some kind sole to help me out again :-)

In this example I have 2 files keyfile.dat that contains the entire ascii charactor set, one character per line. They are the actual characters, NOT the codes.

test.txt works like an index file. Each line contains a number that points to a line number within keyfile.dat which in turn contains an ascii character. The code below prints letters of the alphabet, commas, question marks etc.. However it does not print spaces, carriage returns etc.. I guess this is because I am using str.strip within the print statement. If I do not use that command, instead of printing each character on the same line unless it reads a carriage return, it prints each character on a separate line. Basically this part of the program should print any character it is pointed to, regardless of what it is, and print it exactly as it is, just as like it was being typed.

---EDIT--- CODE REMOVED

Any ideas? & thanks in advance for any replies. Clinton.

Sample content of keyfile.dat

8
e
�
�
T
�
�
�
U
^V
�
^]
b
�
�
�
�
�
F

content test.txt:

Ouput using my code above:

T h i s , i s a t e s t ! O r i s i t ?

as you can see no spaces printed between words, and after ! there should be a carriage return.

Personally I think it is because of my print statement. I need to use .strip otherwise each character read from keyfile.dat gets printed on a new line. .strip to my knowledge removes spaces, carriage returns etc.. So if I read a carriage return & then try to print it, it gets stripped out because my print starement uses .strip.

you'd better use the with statement: with open('keyfile.dat') as f: with open('test.txt') as i: instead of open/close. — zmo
– zmo, Commented Jun 22, 2013 at 14:34

Ashwini Chaudhary · Accepted Answer · 2013-06-22 15:54:09Z

2

Use with statement for handling file, as it automatically closes the file for you:

with open('keyfile.dat') as f, open('test.txt') as i:
    index = [int(line) for line in i)          #apply int() here
    keyfile = f.readlines()
    for ind in index:
        line = keyfile[ind]
        if len(line) > 1:
            print line[:-1],
        elif len(line) == 1:
            print line,

edited Jun 22, 2013 at 15:54

answered Jun 22, 2013 at 14:30

Ashwini Chaudhary

252k60 gold badges478 silver badges519 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

13 Comments

Clinton Moffat Over a year ago

Hi Ashwini, that just prints 1 character per line & still excludes spaces, carriage returns etc.. Thanks for the reply though! Clinton.

Ashwini Chaudhary Over a year ago

@user2490853 please post keyfile and test file in question body.

Clinton Moffat Over a year ago

sorry did not see all your code the first time I read it. I'll try again :-)

Clinton Moffat Over a year ago

Stills prints one character per line & excludes spaces, carriages returns etc... Not sure why. I now tried your method plus several of my own. Always get the same result.

Ashwini Chaudhary Over a year ago

@user2490853 please post some sample data and expected output in the question body, it's not clear how your data looks like.

|

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

Python string print formatting

1 Answer 1

13 Comments

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

1 Answer 1

13 Comments

Related