如何在文本文档中的第 n 个单词之后创建一个新行？

Question

I am working on a project in which I have to list a whole lot of things out in this format

[*] This is the first object
[*] This is the second object
[*] When the object gets too long, I need to move it to the next line
    to look like this. 

I created a .py file and a .txt file. I would input the list objects into the .py file and it would properly format it into the text file. I tried something like this:

text = input('> ')
with open('list.txt', 'a') as f:
    f.write(f'[*] {t}\n')

But I can't seem to move it to the next line. Around the 15th word, is when I want to go to a new line.

How can I achieve this?

Answer 1

Print the bullet first. Then split the text into a list of words, and print each one in a loop. Inside the loop, keep track of how many words have been printed on the current line, and of you reach 15, print a newline and reset the count to zero.

with open('list.txt', 'a') as f:
    # print the bullet
    f.write('[*]')

    wordcount = 0

    # loop over each word in the text
    for word in text.split():
        f.write(f' {word}')
        wordcount += 1

        # if this line has 15 words, start a new line
        if wordcount == 15:
            f.write('\n   ')
            wordcount = 0

    # finally write a newline
    f.write('\n')

Answer 2

Sounds like you're looking for the built-intextwrap module:

import textwrap

wrapper = textwrap.TextWrapper()
wrapper.width = 70
wrapper.initial_indent    = '[*] '
wrapper.subsequent_indent = '    '

items = [
    'This is the first object',
    'This is the second object',
    'When the object gets too long, I need to move it to the next line to look like this.',
]

with open('list.txt', 'a') as f:
    for item in items:
        f.write(wrapper.fill(item) + '\n')

Which produces:

[*] This is the first object
[*] This is the second object
[*] When the object gets too long, I need to move it to the next line
    to look like this.

Answer 3

Or use list comprehensions as an alternative. It is fast, short and does not require importing libraries.

text = 'When the object gets too long, I need to move it to the next line to look like this or even to the next next line if the object gets really long.'
with open('list.txt', 'a') as f:
    words = text.split()
    words = [w if (n + 1) % 15 else w + '\n   ' for n, w in enumerate(words)]
    text = ' '.join(words)
    f.write(f'[*] {text}\n')

Will result in:

[*] When the object gets too long, I need to move it to the next line
    to look like this or even to the next next line if the object gets
    really long.