How do i select an item from readlines lists in Python?

Question

So this is what i have so far for a class project

import os 

UserSelection = input("Select a txt file: ")

with open(UserSelection, 'r', encoding= "latin-1") as f:
    lines= f.readlines()


    print("These are your headers:", lines[0])

state = words()[6]

for i in range(1,len(lines)):
    words=line.split
       if(words()[6] == 'California'):
        print(lines)

i have a large census table and i'm trying to keep only lines where STATE(which is 6th index) is CA. i thought words()[6] would do it but its not. thanks ahead!

Answer 1

Welcome to SO. In the code that you post there are few lines that not so clear to understand.
1) print("These are your headers:", lines[0]) is not indented properly.
2) state = words()[6] the words is not defined before this line.
3) for i in range(1,len(lines)): in this line you are iterating over lines indexes without the first line can be replaces with line in lines[1>]: .
4) words=line.split split method in lists is callable in python so you should use () when you use the method.
5) if(words()[6] == 'California'): unlike split words is a variable not a method so it should not be called with ().
The way as I understand for you code that the code should be is more like

import os 

userSelection = input("Select a txt file: ")

with open(userSelection ,'r', encoding= "latin-1") as f:
    lines= f.readlines()

print("These are your headers:", lines[0])

for line in lines[1:]:
    words=line.split()
    if words[6] == 'California':
        print(lines)

Answer 2

It does work. Your error is indentation. Also, you have some other small errors.

. . .

for i in range(1,len(lines)):
  words=line.split()
  if (words[6] == 'California'):
    print(lines)

.split() is a function and should be called as one.

No need to unnecessarily indent either. Replacing the code snippet above with your old for loop will do the trick.