在Python中比较数组中的字符串

Question

I have an array that stores a string at each index. I am trying to compare a users input to the array, to find the index the string is located. I can confirm that the user string and the array string is infact the same, but it is not giving me a true result. I have included a sample output as well. But if i enter "noaa 16" it cycles through the array, but misses the index.

    import ephem
    import datetime
    requestedSat = raw_input("Please enter the satellite you want to track")
    requestedSat = requestedSat.upper() #format the users input to fit the file constraints.
    tleFile = open("t")
    i = 0
    array = [None] * 100 #need to create a link list of sorts to account for larger files. If a file as more than 100 lines we will have an index error
    for line in tleFile: #read thew the file, counting how many lines there are, as well as adding each line to an array index.
        array[i] = line.translate(None,"[+-]") #removing special characters form the array. I dont know if they are important yet.
        i+=1

    j=0
    found = False

    for x in xrange(0,i/3):
        print requestedSat
        print "array = " + array[j]
        if requestedSat == array[j]:
            print "found it"

        else:
            j+=3

Here is the output. As you can see, the user typed NOAA 16, and the string value is stored in the array. How can i get it to compare the strings accurately

NOOA 16
array = NOAA 14              

NOOA 16
array = NOAA 15 B             

NOOA 16
array = NOAA 16              

NOOA 16
array = NOAA 17              

Answer 1

When you read lines using for line in tleFile: , each line will contain the terminating \\n character at the end. That's just how the file object generator works. So your strings are, in fact, not identical, because array[j] has an extra line break at the end. You're in effect checking whether 'NOOA 16' == 'NOOA 16\\n' , which returns False .

You could solve this by stripping the compared strings of any leading and trailing whitespace characters:

if requestedSat.strip() == array[j].strip():