Python code to replace specific list of strings

Question

Hey I'm currently using python to read a list of string in a txt file and I wanted to cut off multiple strings in the front e.g

example in my txt file:

Jack: Black

Jack: Sparrow

Jimm: Oliver

Jimm: Next

Jimm: Red

Ston: Cold

Bill: Black

I wanted to remove the first 5 string (including ':') from each line so the desired result might be

Black

Sparrow

Oliver

Next

Red

Cold

Black

I've been trying using .replace() but I cannot determine the string neither using string slicing (it will cut only the few characters in the first line)

currently my program looks like this:

with open("C:\\Documents and Settings\\Zha\\Desktop\\test3.txt", "r") as text:
    a = text.read()
    b = str(a).replace(a[:5],'')
    print b

and the current output is

 Black

 Sparrow

Jimm: Oliver

Jimm: Next

Jimm: Red

Ston: Cold

Bill: Black

Might I also add: awk test3.txt '{print $2}'

Jonathon Reinhart
– Jonathon Reinhart

2014-05-21 08:34:17 +00:00
Commented May 21, 2014 at 8:34 — Jonathon Reinhart
– Jonathon Reinhart, Commented May 21, 2014 at 8:34

Jonathon Reinhart · Accepted Answer · 2014-05-21 08:33:03Z

2

Iterate over each line in the file:

with open(filename, "r") as text:
    for line in text:
        print line[6:]

answered May 21, 2014 at 8:33

Jonathon Reinhart

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Comments

Holt · Accepted Answer · 2014-05-21 08:32:40Z

1

Use split:

with open("C:\\Documents and Settings\\Zha\\Desktop\\test3.txt", "r") as text:
    for line in text:
        if line.strip():
            print line.split(':')[1].strip()

answered May 21, 2014 at 8:32

Holt

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Comments

jonrsharpe · Accepted Answer · 2014-05-21 08:42:49Z

1

a is the whole of the file, as a string:

"Jack: Black\nJack: Sparrow\nJimm: Oliver\n" # and so on

so a[:5] == 'Jack:', which you duly replace all occurrences of, but this doesn't do anything with the lines that don't include those characters.

For what you are trying to achieve, readlines() (which gives a list where each item is one line as a string) in combination with split is probably more use:

b = [line.split()[1] for line in text.readlines()]

i.e. "for each line in the file, split on whitespace and give me the second part". This gives b == ["Black", "Sparrow", "Oliver", ...] and means you aren't limited to lines where the first part is exactly 5 characters.

edited May 21, 2014 at 8:42

answered May 21, 2014 at 8:32

jonrsharpe

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Comments

sshashank124 · Accepted Answer · 2014-05-21 08:32:36Z

0

You can do it with the following code:

with open('input.txt') as f:
  f = f.readlines()

f = [i[6:].strip() for i in f]

print f

[OUTPUT]
['Black', 'Sparrow', 'Oliver', 'Next', 'Red', 'Cold', 'Black']

answered May 21, 2014 at 8:32

sshashank124

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