python create tab delimited text file from pair of lists

Question

i have three lists

list1 = ["apple","red","1","fresh"]
list2 = ["mango","red","5","old"]
list3 = ["kiwi","green","3","fresh"]

now i want to create a tab-delimited text file

FRUIT   COLOR   QUANTITY   STATE
apple   red     1          fresh
mango   red     5          old
kiwi    green   3          fresh

I am using this code, however it does not output in correct format...

with open ('processed_seq.txt','a') as proc_seqf:
    for a,b,c in zip(list1,list2,list3):
        proc_seqf.write("{}\t{}".format(a,b,c))

[kshk:~/server] % cat processed_seq.txt  
apple   mangored    red1    5fresh  old%  

any suggestions?

UPDATE:

I am testing out the solutions answered by others on this list

list1 = ['JANET>WAS-TEB-01-INT', 'XXX-TR', 'XXX-TR(HTTPS)', 'XXX3>ASAbox', 'Allow charliega', 'ASAS>ASAbox', 'ASAS>ASAbox80', 'ASAS>ASAbox443', 'JilesGHS>ASAbox', 'XXX2>ASAbox', 'Allow XXX', 'JMP>GHS_ALL_NETWORKS', 'GHS_ALL_NETWORKS>JMP', 'ALL_NETWORKS>DNS', 'DNS>ALL_NETWORKS', 'JMP>AMBARI', 'JMP>DSA_TEB', 'JMP>JENKINS_TEB', 'JMP>GIT_TEB', 'JMP>RANGER_TEB', 'ALL>ZABBIX_SERV', 'ZABBIX_SERV>ALL', 'ASAbox>JANET', 'JMP>JANET2', 'DNS>EXTERNAL_DNS', 'ALL_NETWORKS>GUM', 'ALL_NETWORKS>DSA_DOG_7389', 'ALL_NETWORKS>DSA_KERB_TCP_464', 'ALL_NETWORKS>DSA_KERB_TCP_88', 'ALL_NETWORKS>DSA_KERB_UDP_464', 'ALL_NETWORKS>DSA_KERB_UDP_88', 'ALL_NETWORKS>DSA_LDAP_1', 'ALL_NETWORKS>DSA_LDAP_2', 'ALL_NETWORKS>DSA_NTP', 'BDA>BD', 'BDA>BD_UDP', 'BD>PIN-SQP-01', 'ING>-WAS-FTP-01', 'ING>BD_8080', 'WAS-TEB-01>PAP-RSV-02', 'JENKINS>JMP', 'CI>PROXY', 'ING>BD', 'BDN>DSA01', 'ALLOW XXX', 'GUM>PROXY', 'CI>ALL-SERVERS-GHS', 'deny rest']
list2 = ['None', '123.236.68.195/32', '123.236.68.195/32', '62.17.217.104/32', '10.132.8.23/32', '132.43.147.188/32', '132.43.147.188/32', '132.43.147.188/32', '100.184.251.148/32', '100.136.247.11/32', '62.18.120.237/32', '20.20.6.5/32', '20.20.0.0/16', '20.20.0.0/16', '20.20.1.58/32', '20.20.6.5/32', '20.20.6.5/32', '20.20.6.5/32', '20.20.6.5/32', '20.20.6.5/32', '20.20.0.0/16', '20.20.1.50/32', '123.122.0.149/32', '20.20.6.5/32', '20.20.1.58/32', '20.20.0.0/16', '20.20.0.0/16', '20.20.0.0/16', '20.20.0.0/16', '20.20.0.0/16', '20.20.0.0/16', '20.20.0.0/16', '20.20.0.0/16', '20.20.0.0/16', '20.20.2.0/24', '20.20.2.0/24', '20.20.3.0/24', '20.20.4.0/24', '20.20.4.0/24', '20.20.6.3/32', '20.20.1.38/32', '20.20.1.38/32', '20.20.4.0/24', '20.20.3.0/24', '188.29.165.228/32', '20.20.1.33/32', '20.20.1.38/32', 'None']
list3 = ['123.122.0.154/32', '123.122.0.149/32', '123.122.0.149/32', '123.122.0.149/32', 'None', '123.122.0.149/32', '123.122.0.149/32', '123.122.0.149/32', '123.122.0.149/32', '123.122.0.149/32', 'None', '20.20.0.0/16', '20.20.6.5/32', '20.20.1.58/32', '20.20.0.0/16', '20.20.3.7/32', '20.20.1.44/32', '20.20.1.38/32', '20.20.1.38/32', '20.20.3.7/32', '20.20.1.50/32', '20.20.0.0/16', 'None', 'None', '20.20.6.5/32', '20.20.1.33/32', '20.20.1.44/32', '20.20.1.44/32', '20.20.1.44/32', '20.20.1.44/32', '20.20.1.44/32', '20.20.1.44/32', '20.20.1.44/32', '20.20.1.44/32', '20.20.3.0/24', '20.20.3.0/24', '20.20.4.3/32', '20.20.6.7/32', '20.20.3.7/32', '20.20.2.28/32', '20.20.6.5/32', '20.20.6.5/32', '20.20.3.0/24', '20.20.1.44/32', 'None', '20.20.6.5/32', '20.20.0.0/16', 'None']
list4 = ['None', 'None', 'None', 'None', 'None', 'None', 'None', 'None', 'None', 'None', 'None', 'None', '22', 'None', '53', 'None', 'None', 'None', 'None', 'None', 'None', 'None', 'None', 'None', 'None', 'None', 'None', 'None', 'None', 'None', 'None', 'None', 'None', 'None', 'None', 'None', 'None', 'None', 'None', 'None', 'None', 'None', 'None', 'None', 'None', 'None', 'None', 'None']
list5 = ['443', '22', '443', 'None', 'None', '22', '80', '443', '22', 'None', 'None', '22', 'None', '53', 'None', '8080', '443', '8081', '80', '6080', '10051', '10050', 'None', 'None', '53', '80', '7389', '464', '88', '464', '88', '389', '636', '123', 'None', '1024:65535', '22', '22', '8080', '443', '22', '3128', 'None', '443', 'None', '3128', '22', 'None']
list6 = ['allow', 'allow', 'allow', 'allow', 'allow', 'allow', 'allow', 'allow', 'allow', 'allow', 'allow', 'allow', 'allow', 'allow', 'allow', 'allow', 'allow', 'allow', 'allow', 'allow', 'allow', 'allow', 'allow', 'allow', 'allow', 'allow', 'allow', 'allow', 'allow', 'allow', 'allow', 'allow', 'allow', 'allow', 'allow', 'allow', 'allow', 'allow', 'allow', 'allow', 'allow', 'allow', 'allow', 'allow', 'allow', 'allow', 'allow', 'deny']

Answer 1

Using the csv module:

import csv
csv.register_dialect('fruit', delimiter='\t', quoting=csv.QUOTE_NONE, lineterminator='\n')
with open('processed_seq.txt', 'a') as csvfile:
    fieldnames = ['FRUIT', 'COLOR', 'QUANTITY', 'STATE']
    list1 = ["apple","red","1","fresh"]
    list2 = ["mango","red","5","old"]
    list3 = ["kiwi","green","3","fresh"]
    alllists = [fieldnames, list1, list2, list3]
    writer = csv.writer(csvfile, dialect='fruit')
    writer.writerows(alllists)

Output:

FRUIT   COLOR   QUANTITY    STATE
apple   red 1   fresh
mango   red 5   old
kiwi    green   3   fresh

Answer 2

Since you don't want to write the columns to file You don't need zip , also you have omitted some of the items.

And for correcting the format you can use str.format with specifying the number of white spaces after each item :

>>> for a,b,c,d in (list1,list2,list3):
...       print("{:<10} {:<10} {:<10} {:<10}".format(a,b,c,d))
... 
apple      red        1          fresh     
mango      red        5          old       
kiwi       green      3          fresh 

For writing in file :

with open ('processed_seq.txt','a') as proc_seqf:
    for a,b,c,d in (list1,list2,list3):
        proc_seqf.write("{:<10} {:<10} {:<10} {:<10}".format(a,b,c,d))

If you don't want to use multiple variable names you can use variable unpacking :

>>> for a in (list1,list2,list3):
...       print("{:<10} {:<10} {:<10} {:<10}".format(*a))
... 
apple      red        1          fresh     
mango      red        5          old       
kiwi       green      3          fresh 

Or :

>>> s="{:<10}"*4
>>> for a in (list1,list2,list3):
...       print("s.format(*a))
... 
apple      red        1          fresh     
mango      red        5          old       
kiwi       green      3          fresh