Question

Im still new to python.
I have a text file with a list of numbers, and each number has two ‘attributes’ along with it:

250 121 6000.654
251 8472 650.15614
252 581  84.2

i want to search for the 1st column and return the 2nd and 3rd columns as separate variables so i can use them later.

cmd = """ cat new.txt | nawk '/'251'/{print $2}' """
os.system(cmd)

This works in that it prints the $2 column, but i want to assign this output to a variable, something like this (however this returns the number of errors AFAIK):

cmdOutput =  os.system(cmd)

also i would like to change the nawk’d value based on a variable, something like this:

cmd = """ cat new.txt | nawk '/'$input'/{print $2}' """

If anyone can help, thanks.

Answer 1

Don’t use cat and nawk. Please.

Just use Python

import sys
target= raw_input( 'target: ' ) # or target= sys.argv[1]
with open('new.txt','r') as source:
    for columns in ( raw.strip().split() for raw in source ):
        if column[0] == target: print column[1]

No cat. No nawk.