给定一个字符串列表，每个字符串由逗号分隔的子字符串组成，如何重新排序子字符串？

Question

I have a list of names in an excel file that I have copied into a text file. The format of the names is "last name, pre-names" where pre-names are first names (and middle names when applicable). In a handful of cases, there are two middle-names. How can I remove the comma and change the order of the names so that the first names (and middle names) come before the last name?

Original:

lastname1, firstname1
lastname2, firstname2 middlename2
lastname3, firstname3

What I want:

firstname1 lastname1
firstname2 middlename2 lastname2
firstname3 lastname3

PS - I teach labs at my local university and this is for a gradebook consisting of hundreds of names.

Answer 1

You can use split, to divide the names on the comma:

for name in names:
    last, first = name.split(',', 1)
    print(first, last)

Sample data:

names = [x.strip() for x in """
    lastname1, firstname1
    lastname2, firstname2 middlename2
    lastname3, firstname3
""".split('\n')[1:-1]]

Prints:

firstname1 lastname1
firstname2 middlename2 lastname2
firstname3 lastname3

If you need to read names from a file:

with open("file_location/file_name.txt") as f:
    names = f.readlines() 

Answer 2

It depends on what environment (or application) you are using. For excel, I would simply import the text data and tell excel that it is comma delimited text. Here is how to do it (Microsoft link) Text Import Wizard