Python: Creating a file list from a directory of .txt files

Question

I'm trying to load a corpus from a directory of.txt files then create a document list.

I thought it would be simple enough, but when I run it nothing happens, am I missing something?

import os.path
import re
import glob

 def load_data_from_dir(path):
file_list = glob.glob('/transcripts/*.txt')


# create document list:
documents_list = []
for filename in file_list:
    with open(filename, 'r', encoding='utf8') as f:
        text = f.read()
        f.close()
        documents_list.append(text)
print("Total Number of Documents:",len(documents_list))
return documents_list

Answer 1

Make sure to indent your code in python properly. Also, check the path of the code. Either give a absolute path or a relative path. Absolute path would work perfectly though.

import os.path
import re
import glob

def load_data_from_dir():
    file_list = glob.glob('./transcripts/*.txt')


    # create document list:
    documents_list = []
    for filename in file_list:
        with open(filename, 'r', encoding='utf8') as f:
            text = f.read()
            documents_list.append(text)
    print("Total Number of Documents:",len(documents_list))
    return documents_list

load_data_from_dir()

Answer 2

There are a few mistakes in your code.

1. The function ( load_data_from_dir ) body is not indented. Indent all the lines (upto your return statement) in the function body
2. File opened with with construct should not be closed explicitly. Remove f.close()

3. If this is a single module and you run only a function. Then nothing will happen. You need to make sure you call that function. So add

   if __name__ == '__main__': load_data_from_dir(...)