Question

I am trying to make a disorganized text file into a list suitable for use with another python program. The text file is a list of data seperated by a few spaces but not in standard columns or anything organized. The goal of this program is to read through the file using python and after each piece of data that I want there is a space, so I want to make a new line. The output should be a list of data with each term on one line. In addition there are some terms that I do not want. All the terms that I want start with “JJ”.

Here is what i have so far. Note this does not run yet. I am looking for help finishing this program that will select all the terms starting with JJ and make a new line at the space after the JJ term. Thanks Robert

datafile = open ('C:\\textfile.txt', 'r')

line_list = line.split(" ")
for x in line_list:
    if x.startswith("JJ") : print line_list

EDIT: So i want to open the file called textfile and have python keep only the lines of data that start with “JJ”. Additionaly I want each data to be on it’s own line, which is why I want to seperate them using the space after each ilne of data? Is that clearer?

Answer 1

lines = [item for item in open('C:\textfile.txt', 'r').read().split(' ') if item.startswith("JJ")]