How to create a dictionary based on a string from a file

Question

I have this following string in a text file

InfoType 0 :

string1

string2

string3

InfoType 1 :

string1

string2

string3

InfoType 3 :

string1

string2

string3

Is there a way to create a dictionary that would look like this:

{'InfoType 0':'string1,string2,string3', 'InfoType 1':'string1,string2,string3', 'InfoType 3':'string1,string2,string3'}

Answer 1

Something like this should work:

def my_parser(fh, key_pattern):
    d = {}
    for line in fh:
        if line.startswith(key_pattern):
            name = line.strip()
            break

    # This list will hold the lines
    lines = []

    # Now iterate to find the lines
    for line in fh:
        line = line.strip()
        if not line:
            continue

        if line.startswith(key_pattern):
            # When in this block we have reached 
            #  the next record

            # Add to the dict
            d[name] = ",".join(lines)

            # Reset the lines and save the
            #  name of the next record
            lines = []
            name = line

            # skip to next line
            continue

        lines.append(line)

    d[name] = ",".join(lines)
    return d

Use like so:

with open("myfile.txt", "r") as fh:
    d = my_parser(fh, "InfoType")
# {'InfoType 0 :': 'string1,string2,string3',
#  'InfoType 1 :': 'string1,string2,string3',
#  'InfoType 3 :': 'string1,string2,string3'}

There are limitations, such as:

• Duplicate keys
• The key needs processing

You could get around these by making the function a generator and yielding name, str pairs and processing them as you read the file.

Answer 2

This will do:

dictionary = {}

# Replace ``file.txt`` with the path of your text file.
with open('file.txt', 'r') as file:
    for line in file:
        if not line.strip():
            continue

        if line.startswith('InfoType'):
            key = line.rstrip('\n :')
            dictionary[key] = ''
        else:
            value = line.strip('\n') + ','
            dictionary[key] += value