Question

The specific line is

b = int(a.translate(None, "\t<,"))

a is a string which contains "\t<56,000". When I print the result of the translate operation I get “56000”, but when it gets to the int() line, it gives me an error saying

ValueError: invalid literal for int() with base 10: ''

as if the string I gave it was null for some reason. Is there something I’m doing wrong? (also I’m reading the string in from a txt file if that changes anything)

Here is the source code: link

Answer 1

The problem is that in addition to all the strings you think you are getting, you also end up with a few strings consisting only of “\t”, which is then turned into empty strings by the string conversions.

Adding an additional clause to the if-test when testing for empty strings solves this:

if (i != " ") and (i != "") and (i != "\t"):
    (...)

instead of:

if i != " " and i != "":
    (...)

Also, consider using parenthesis for clarity…