In Python, how do you create a list from a file?

Question

I'm trying to create a list in which each line of a file is its own list of the words in that line. So for example, if the file read:

apples oranges bananas

kale spinach

carrots tomatoes celery broccoli

Then I'd like the list to read:

l = [[["apples"], ["oranges"], ["bananas"]], [["kale"], ["spinach"]], [["carrots"], ["tomatoes"], ["celery"], ["broccoli"]]]

What's the best way to do this? readlines?

Answer 1

You may do like this..

with open(file) as f:
    print [[[j] for j in i.split()] for i in f if i]

Example:

>>> s = '''apples oranges bananas

kale spinach

carrots tomatoes celery broccoli'''.splitlines()
>>> [[[j] for j in i.split()] for i in s if i]
[[['apples'], ['oranges'], ['bananas']], [['kale'], ['spinach']], [['carrots'], ['tomatoes'], ['celery'], ['broccoli']]]

Answer 2

You can do it, like this:

L = []
with open('words.txt','r') as f:
    for line in f:
        L.append(line.split())

Answer 3

As I tried to explain to @AvinashRaj, you'll need to use something like not i.isspace() to filter out the empty lines (as they still contain a newline character)

with open(file) as fin:
    print [[[j] for j in i.split()] for i in fin if not i.isspace()]

The with block is called a context manager. It closes fin once the end of the block is reached.