Converting a text file to a string?

[Robin Becker]

In article <QC7k7.5474$QG.2234404 at monolith.news.easynet.net>, eif
<eif at ukonline.co.uk> writes
>can anyone  please help me out here? - im running a python cgi script that
>outputs a database in a text file format something that looks like this:
>
>999347857||9/1/2001 at 13:37:37|016354|jim o
>shea|jim at mmu.ac.uk|126|0161025658
>999347943||9/1/2001 at 13:39:03|223654|roy
>saberton|roy at mmu.ac.uk|201|0161236510
>999347943||9/1/2001 at 13:39:03|223654|roy
>saberton|roy at mmu.ac.uk|201|0161236510
>
>I can open and read this file, but the problem is I want to convert this
>file into a list - in order to access and manipulate each individual
>element. can anyone tell me how to do this or am I going the wrong way about
>the problem?
>
>cheers
well with your sample

L = open('/tmp/tdb.txt','r').readlines()
R = []
for i in xrange(0,len(L),2):
        R.append((L[i].strip()+L[i+1].strip()).split('|'))

from pprint import pprint
pprint(R)


produced
C:\Tmp>tryit.py
[['999347857',
  '',
  '9/1/2001 at 13:37:37',
  '016354',
  'jim oshea',
  'jim at mmu.ac.uk',
  '126',
  '0161025658'],
 ['999347943',
  '',
  '9/1/2001 at 13:39:03',
  '223654',
  'roysaberton',
  'roy at mmu.ac.uk',
  '201',
  '0161236510'],
 ['999347943',
  '',
  '9/1/2001 at 13:39:03',
  '223654',
  'roysaberton',
  'roy at mmu.ac.uk',
  '201',
  '0161236510']]

C:\Tmp>

-- 
Robin Becker