How to read a line in a .txt file and create a list?

Question

def search():
    num = input("Type Number : ")  
    search = open("Customerlist.txt", 'r')  
    for line in search:  
     if str(num) in line:  
      print (line)  
      filetext = str(line)  

I am writing a stock system. I have written code to create a customer and write their details to a file eg filetext = customernumber, firstname, surname, DOB, hnumber, postcode, Gender
I now want to search the file by inputting the customer number and then draw out specific info like just printing postcode etc. How do I do this?

I am new to python and any help is appreciated

Answer 1

Assuming your "filetext" looks like this:

1, Alice, Alison, 010180, 55, 2500, F

Then you can retrieve what you want from the file like this:

def find():
    num = 1
    f = open('Customerlist.txt', 'r') #Open file
    search = f.readlines() #read data into memory (list of strings)
    f.close() #close file again
    for line in search:
        lst = line.split(", ") #split on the seperator - in this case a comma and space
        if str(num) == lst[0]: #Check if the string representation of your number equals the first parameter in your lst.
            print "ID: %s" % lst[0]
            print "Name: %s" % lst[1]
            print "Surname: %s" % lst[2]
            print "DOB: %s" % lst[3]
            print "hnumber: %s" % lst[4]
            print "Postcode: %s" % lst[5]
            print "Gender: %s" % lst[6]

Will output:

ID: 1
Name: Alice
Surname: Alison
DOB: 010180
hnumber: 55
Postcode: 2500
Gender: F

This should pretty much cover your need. However do note that I have done absolutely NOTHING to remove special characters, line endings etc. You should be able to figure that out easily. Hint - the method you look for is strip()