Question

I’m trying to parse the output from a tool into a data structure but I’m having some difficulty getting things right. The file looks like this:

 Fruits
   Apple
     Auxiliary
     Core
     Extras
   Banana
     Something
   Coconut
 Vegetables
   Eggplant
   Rutabaga

You can see that top-level items are indented by one space, and items beneath that are indented by two spaces for each level. The items are also in alphabetical order.

How do I turn the file into a Python list that’s something like ["Fruits", "Fruits/Apple", "Fruits/Banana", ..., "Vegetables", "Vegetables/Eggplant", "Vegetables/Rutabaga"]?

Answer 1

>>> with open("food.txt") as f:
...     res = []
...     s=[]
...     for line in f:
...         line=line.rstrip()
...         x=len(line)
...         line=line.lstrip()
...         indent = x-len(line)
...         s=s[:indent/2]+[line]
...         res.append("/".join(s))
...     print res
... 
['Fruits', 'Fruits/Apple', 'Fruits/Apple/Auxiliary', 'Fruits/Apple/Core', 'Fruits/Apple/Extras', 'Fruits/Banana', 'Fruits/Banana/Something', 'Fruits/Coconut', 'Vegetables', 'Vegetables/Eggplant', 'Vegetables/Rutabaga']