Reading files into a 2D list.

[Larry Bates]

Few observations.

1) Don't concatenate pathnames yourself use os.path.join, that
makes your code portable.

lexi_file = open(os.path.join(sys.path[0],"lexi",files), "r")

2) Start with an empty list and append your "lines" lists:

files_and_lines=[]
filenumber = 0

for files in file_names:
    fpath=os.path.join(sys.path[0]),"lexi", files)
    try:
        lexi_file = open(fpath, "r")
        files_and_lines.append(lexi_file.readlines())

    except(IOError):
        print "Something went wrong trying to read the file:"
        print "'%s'" % fpath

lexi_file.close() # Remember to close each file

Now you have:

files_and_lines[0][0] -> Line 1 of the first file
files_and_lines[0][1] -> Line 2 of the first file
.
.
.
files_and_lines[0][n] -> Line n of the first file
files_and_lines[1][0] -> Line 1 of the second file
.
.
.

Larry Bates

Oyvind Ostlund wrote:
> I am not sure what the right syntax is here. So please help me out (started 2 days ago).
> 
> I have a list of about 20 files that I want to read line by line into a 2D list. So the first dimension will be each file, and the second every line in that file.
> 
> 
> I tried to do something like this:
> 
>     files_and_lines = [][]
>     filenumber = 0
>     
>     for files in file_names:
>         try:
>             lexi_file = open(str(sys.path[0]) + "/lexi/" + files, "r")
>             files_and_lines[filenumber] = lexi_file.readlines()
>             filenumber = filenumber + 1
> 
>         except(IOError):
>             print "Something went wrong trying to read the file:"
>             print "'" + str(sys.path[0]) + files + "'"
> 
> 
> 
> But that was not very sucksessfully. I am not even sure on how to define an empty 2D list. Thanks for all help.
> 
> ØØ