Printing a txt file inside python shell

Question

I have an assignment for class that has me transfer txt data from excel and execute in python. But every time I run it, only hex is displayed. I was wondering how to have the data displayed in ascii in the shell. This is the code I have so far. Is it possible to print it out in ascii in the shell?

infile = open("data.txt", 'r')
listName = [line.rstrip() for line in infile]
print (listName)
infile.close()

Answer 1

The reason its not working is because you are opening an Excel file - which is in a special format and is not a plain text file.

You can test this by yourself by opening the file in a text editor like Notepad; and you'll see the contents aren't in text.

To open the file and read its contents in Python you will need to do one of these two things:

1. Open the file in Excel, then save it as a text file (or a comma separated file CSV). Keep in mind if you do this, then you can only save one sheet at a time.

2. Use a module like pyexcel which will allow you to read the Excel file correctly in Python.

Just opening the file as plain text (or changing its extension) doesn't convert it.