Question

I have a simple program that takes an ID number and prints information for the person matching the ID. The information is stored in a .dat file, with one ID number per line.

The problem is that my program is also reading the newline character \n from the file. I have tried the ‘name’.split() method, but this doesn’t seem to work for a list.

My program:

from time import localtime, strftime

files = open("grades.dat")
request = open("requests.dat", "w")
lists = files.readlines()
grades = []

for i in range(len(lists)):
    grades.append(lists[i].split(","))

cont = "y"

while cont == "y" or cont == "Y":
    answer = raw_input("Please enter the Student I.D. of whom you are looking: ")
    for i in range(len(grades)):
        if answer == grades[i][0]:
            print grades[i][1] + ", " + grades[i][2] + (" "*6) + grades[i][0] + (" "*6) + grades[i][3]
            time = strftime("%a, %b %d %Y %H:%M:%S", localtime())
            print time
            print "Exams - " + grades[i][11] + ", " + grades[i][12] + ", " + grades[i][13]
            print "Homework - " + grades[i][4] + ", " + grades[i][5] + ", " + grades[i][6] + ", " + grades[i][7] + ", " +grades[i][8] + ", " + grades[i][9] + ", " + grades[i][10]
            total = int(grades[i][4]) + int(grades[i][5]) + int(grades[i][6]) + int(grades[i][7]) + int(grades[i][8]) + int(grades[i][9]) + int(grades[i][10]) + int(grades[i][11]) + int(grades[i][12]) + int(grades[i][13])
            print "Total points earned - " + str(total)
            grade = float(total) / 550
            grade = grade * 100
            if grade >= 90:
                print "Grade: " + str(grade) + ", that is equal to an A."
            elif grade >= 80 and grade < 90:
                print "Grade: " + str('%.2f' %grade) + ", that is equal to a B."
            elif grade >= 70 and grade < 80:
                print "Grade: " + str('%.2f' %grade) + ", that is equal to a C."
            elif grade >= 60 and grade < 70:
                print "Grade: " + str('%.2f' %grade) + ", that is equal to a D."
            else:
                print "Grade: " + str('%.2f' %grade) + ", that is equal to an F."
            request.write(grades[i][0] + " " + grades[i][1] + ", " + grades [i][2] +
                          " " + time)
            request.write("\n")


    print
    cont = raw_input("Would you like to search again? ")

if cont != "y" or cont != "Y":
    print "Goodbye."

Answer 1

str.strip() returns a string with leading+trailing whitespace removed, .lstrip and .rstrip for only leading and trailing respectively.

grades.append(lists[i].rstrip('\n').split(','))