2 identical strings "not equal" [Python]

Question

Found a similar question via search but I'm a new (terrible) programmer and couldn't understand the answer.

I have a .txt file with multiple strings, seperated by a '-'. I used a split to seperate some of the strings into variables, and 2 of them are equal, but in an if statement they come out as not equal.

f_nmr, f_Question, f_1, f_2, f_3, f_answer = file.readline().split('-')
print(f_2)
print(f_answer)
if f_2 == f_answer:
    print("Yes")
elif f_2 != f_answer:
    print("No")

This produces the following:

Sweden

No

There is a space infront and after both "Sweden" strings, and they're both written with an uppercase 'S', yet are not equal? Where have I messed up?

Try to trim both strings and then test the result with f_2.strip() and f_answer.strip(). — Fady Saad
– Fady Saad, Commented Sep 21, 2017 at 0:20
Try print(repr(f_2)) and print(repr(f_answer)); I guarantee you'll see a difference. — ShadowRanger
– ShadowRanger, Commented Sep 21, 2017 at 0:22
@ShadowRanger not necessarily. repr('Ѕweden') and repr('Sweden') looks exact the same with the glyphs in my terminal, but those strings aren't equal. — wim
– wim, Commented Sep 21, 2017 at 0:28

John1024 · Accepted Answer · 2017-09-21 00:31:41Z

5

The last element includes a newline. Let's take this input file as an example:

$ cat file.txt
Sweden-Sweden

Now, let's read it in:

>>> a, b = open('file.txt').readline().split('-')
>>> a,b
('Sweden', 'Sweden\n')
>>> a == b
False

The solution is to strip the newline:

>>> a, b = open('file.txt').readline().rstrip('\n').split('-')
>>> a == b
True

edited Sep 21, 2017 at 0:31

answered Sep 21, 2017 at 0:23

John1024

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