python make array from list / or convert parenthesis to brackets

sharky · 11-12-2015, 11:37 AM

I open a text file and read the lines into a list. The result is something like this.

Quote:

( ttime
( ttimeA player 1 ( 17 18 ) )
( ttimeB player 1 ( 17 18 ) )
)

It would be very useful if I could convert the parenthesis to square brackets and then python to interpret the whole thing as a hierarchical list.

Quote:

[ ttime
[ ttimeA player 1 [ 17 18 ] ]
[ ttimeB player 1 [ 17 18 ] ]
]

Then I could access things very easily with bracket notation.

Is this possible? Hope my question is clear.

dugan · 11-12-2015, 12:25 PM

Well, the parentheses->to->brackets part is easy...

Code:

line.replace('(', '[').replace(')', ']')

grail · 11-12-2015, 12:58 PM

I'm no python guru, but isn't that just tuple terminology? Could you not just leave it as is and then loop or whatever over the tuple??

sharky · 11-12-2015, 01:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by grail

I'm no python guru, but isn't that just tuple terminology? Could you not just leave it as is and then loop or whatever over the tuple??

I had not thought of that. However, the four lines are divided by pythons readline function into separate entries in a list. I do not know how to convert the lines into a 'proper' tuple.

dugan · 11-12-2015, 04:05 PM

This really isn't as simple a problem as you think. You really should be using PyParsing to do it.

HMW · 11-13-2015, 04:28 AM

Hi!

Not really sure what your goal is here, but wouldn't a dicionary perhaps be better suited for this task?

Something like this:

Code:

>>> myDict
{'ttime': {'ttimeA': {'player1': ['17', '18']}}}

Then you can access the various values with something like:

Code:

>>> myDict['ttime']['ttimeA']['player1'][0]
'17'

And/or:

Code:

>>> myDict['ttime']['ttimeA']
{'player1': ['17', '18']}

Best regards,
HMW

sharky · 11-13-2015, 09:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dugan

This really isn't as simple a problem as you think. You really should be using PyParsing to do it.

You're right. Unfortunately, from the corporate network we don't have pyparsing installed.

However, I was able to work-around the issue and extract the required data and place the results into python defined list. The code is ugly, even by poor programming standards, but it works.

Thanks to all for the feedback.