avoid blank line when reading names from .txt into python list

December 13, 2022

I’m trying read a list of names from a .txt file into python so I can work with it.

humans = ['Barry', 'Finn', 'John', 'Jacob', '', 'George', 'Ringo', '']

with open(p_to_folder / 'humans.txt', 'w') as f:#using pathlib for my paths
    for h in humans:
        f.write(f'{h}\n')

What I’d like to do is read the .txt file back in so that I can work with names again, but leave out the blanks.

I have tried

with open(p_to_folder / 'humans.txt', 'r') as f:#using pathlib for my paths
    new_humans = [line.rstrip() for line in f.readlines() if line != '']

when I inspect this is list I get

['Barry', 'Finn', 'John', 'Jacob', '', 'George', 'Ringo', '']

I can just run the line

new_humans = [i for i in new_humans if i != '']

and get

['Barry', 'Finn', 'John', 'Jacob', 'George', 'Ringo']

but I’d like to be able to do it in one line, and also to understand why my if statement isn’t working in the original list comprehension.

Thank you

>Solution :

Try this.

with open(p_to_folder / 'humans.txt', 'r+') as f:#using pathlib for my paths
    new_humans  = [line.rstrip() for line in f.readlines() if line.strip()]