Question

lines = [l.split() for l in inpf.readlines() if l.strip()]

In the above statement, what does l.strip() do?

lines = [l.split() for l in inpf.readlines()]. 

Will the above statement will not suffice?

Answer 1

strip() removes any leading/trailing whitespace. so it will skip any lines that consist of nothing but whitespace or are empty.

On a side-note, there is no need to use .readlines() – you can iterate over the lines instead and thus avoid creating a second list which is thrown away right after the list comprehension finished:

lines = [l.split() for l in inpf if l.strip()]