Question

I modified the following script to my needs (original found at Fully parsable dictionary/thesaurus and written by samplebias [at samplebias, very useful, thank you :)]):

import textwrap
from nltk.corpus import wordnet as wn

POS = {
    'v': 'verb', 'a': 'adjective', 's': 'satellite adjective', 
    'n': 'noun', 'r': 'adverb'}

def info(word, pos=None):
    for i, syn in enumerate(wn.synsets(word, pos)):
        syns = [n.replace('_', ' ') for n in syn.lemma_names]
        ants = [a for m in syn.lemmas for a in m.antonyms()]
        ind = ' '*12
        defn= textwrap.wrap(syn.definition, 64)
        print 'sense %d (%s)' % (i + 1, POS[syn.pos])
        n1=str('definition: ' + ('\n' + ind).join(defn))
        n2=str('  synonyms:', ', '.join(syns))
        if ants:
            n3=str('  antonyms:', ', '.join(a.name for a in ants))
        if syn.examples:
            n4=str('  examples: ' + ('\n' + ind).join(syn.examples))
        try:
            resp = ("From dictionary:\n%s\n%s\n%s\n%s") %(n1, n2, n3, n4)
        except:
            try:
                resp = ("From dictionary:\n%s\n%s\n%s") %(n1, n2, n3)
            except:
                try:
                    resp = ("From dictionary:\n%s\n%s") %(n1, n2)
                except:
                    resp = ("Data not available...")
        print
        return resp

However, I can tell that I have not modified it very well as it is just wrapped in try/except blocks. But I can’t for the life of me think of a better way to do it (still learning python in an abstract manner). I need it formatted into a variable containing \n as a separator for each line as it is written to a file. Any ideas how I can do this better, and without the lists thing that seems to be happening?

–Define Sunrise

From dictionary:

definition: the first light of day

(‘ synonyms:’, ‘dawn, dawning, morning, aurora, first light, daybreak, break of day, break of the day, dayspring, sunrise, sunup, cockcrow’)

(‘ antonyms:’, ‘sunset’)

examples: we got up before dawn
they talked until morning

---

thanks! 🙂

Answer 1

Instead of creating a string for each line, just append your text to the output variable from the start.

resp = 'From dictionary:\ndefinition: ' + ('\n' + ind).join(defn) +'\n'
resp += '  synonyms:' + ', '.join(syns) +'\n'
if ants:
    resp += '  antonyms:' + ', '.join(a.name for a in ants)) +'\n'
if syn.examples:
    resp += '  examples: ' + ('\n' + ind).join(syn.examples)) +'\n'