python -- question with list.pop(0)

[Terry Reedy]

"David Stockwell" <winexpert at hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:BAY2-F110eI4ks6AM1w0001905d at hotmail.com...
>           ourFile = open(fileNamesList[0],'r')
>           strData = ourFile.read()

>From what you do below, you want .readlines()

>           ourFile.close()
>
>           records = []
>           print "split 0.5"
>           records.append(strData.split("\n"))

strData.split('\n') is a list of lines.  append adds one element to a
list -- in this case the list of lines.  You apparently want .extend()

>           print "records '%s'" % records
> === end snippet ====
> at this point the output looks like this
>
> '[['this is line 1', 'this is line 2', 'this is line 3', '' ]]'

right, as you requested, even if not what you meant ;-)

Terry J. Reedy