[Tutor] Dictionary File character reader

[Dave Angel]

On 01/-10/-28163 02:59 PM, Clara Mintz wrote:
>
> Sorry I am completely new at python and don't understand why this function is returning an empty dictionary. I want it to take a list of files open them then return the number of characters as the value and the file name as the key.
> def fileLengths(files):    d = {}    files = []    for file in files:        reader = open(file)        for line in reader:            char = sum(len(line))        d[file] = char        reader.close    return d
> Thank you sorry I don't understand what I am doing wrong.
> -Clara 		 	   		

The first thing you're doing is wordwrapping your program fragment.  It 
makes the code hard to read, and some aspects impossible, as we can't 
tell what parts were indented by how much.

The second thing is clobbering your input parameter.  files=[] will 
obliterate whatever argument was passed to that function.

You will have more problems after that:
    sum() won't work on an integer, so it's not clear why you're calling 
len() on the line.
   You're returning d from the function, but nothing in the function 
ever inserts anything into it.  So it will clearly be empty.

print is your friend.  A couple of carefully placed print statements 
would reveal these problems.

DaveA