How to create a table using a list of lists

Question

I'm trying to write a file where you have 2 rows, with the first row being numbers and the 2nd row being letters. As an example, I was trying to do this with the alphabet.

list1=['A','B','C','D','E','F','G','H','I','J','K','L','M','N','O','P','Q','R','S','T','U','V','W','X','Y','Z']
list2=list1+list1

abcList = [[],[]]

for i in range(len(list2)):
    i+=1
    if i % 5 == 0:
        if i>=10:
            abcList[0].append(str(i) + '     ')
        else:
            abcList[0].append(str(i) + ' ')
    elif i<=1:
        abcList[0].append(str(i) + ' ')
    else:
        abcList[0].append('  ')
for i,v in enumerate(list2):
    i+=1
    if i > 10:
        abcList[1].append(' '+v+' ')
    else:
        abcList[1].append(v+' ')

print(''.join(abcList[0]))
print(''.join(abcList[1]))

with open('file.txt','w') as file:
    file.write(''.join(abcList[0]))
    file.write('\n')
    file.write(''.join(abcList[1]))

The problem with the above setup is its very "hacky" (I don't know if its the right word). It "works", but its really just modifying 2 lists to make sure they stack on top of one another properly. The problem is if your list becomes too long, then the text wraps around, and stacks on itself instead of the numbers. I'm looking for something a bit less "hacky" that would work for any size list (trying to do this without external libraries, so I don't want to use pandas or numpy).

Edit: The output would be:

1       5         10
A B C D E F G H I J...etc.

Edit 2: Just thought I'd add, I've gotten this far with it so far, but I've only been able to make columns, not rows.

list1=['A','B','C','D','E','F','G','H','I','J','K','L','M','N','O','P','Q','R','S','T','U','V','W','X','Y','Z']
list2=list1*2

abcList = [[],[]]

for i in range(len(list2)):
    i+=1
    if i % 5 == 0:
        if i>=5:
            abcList[0].append(str(i))
    elif i<=1:
        abcList[0].append(str(i))
    else:
        abcList[0].append('')
for i,letter in enumerate(list2):
    abcList[1].append(letter)

for number, letters in zip(*abcList):
    print(number.ljust(5), letters)

However, this no longer has the wrapping issues, and the numbers line up with the letters perfectly. The only thing now is to get them from columns to rows.

Output of above is:

1     A
      B
      C
      D
5     E
      F
      G
      H
      I
10    J

Answer 1

I mean, you could do something like this:

file_contents = """...""" # The file contents. I not the best at file manipulation


def parser(document):  # This function will return a nested list
    temp = str(document).split('\n')
    return [[line] for line in temp]  # List comprehension
parsed = parser(file_contents) 
# And then do what you want with that

Answer 2

Your expected output is a bit inconsistent, since in the first one, you have 1, 6, 11, 16... and in the second: 1, 5, 10, 15.... So I have a couple of possible solutions:

---

print(''.join(['  ' if n%5 else str(n+1).ljust(2) for n in range(len(list2))]))
print(''.join([c.ljust(2) for c in list2]))

Output:

1         6         11        16        21        26        31        36        41        46        51  
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

---

print(''.join(['  ' if n%5 else str(n).ljust(2) for n in range(len(list2))]))
print(''.join([c.ljust(2) for c in list2]))

Output:

0         5         10        15        20        25        30        35        40        45        50  
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z 

---

print(''.join(['1 ']+['  ' if n%5 else str(n).ljust(2) for n in range(len(list2))][1:]))
print(''.join([c.ljust(2) for c in list2]))

Output:

1         5         10        15        20        25        30        35        40        45        50  
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

---

Answer 3

If you are wanting to keep variable width strings aligned, you could use string formatting with a width equal to the maximum of the widths of the individual items in that position. (This example will work with more than any number of lists, by the way.)

list1 = ["", "5", "", "10", "", "4"]
list2 = ["A", "B", "C", "D", "EE", "F"]

lists = [list1, list2]

widths = [max(map(len, t)) for t in zip(*lists)]

for lst in lists:
    line = " ".join("{val:{width}s}".format(val=val, width=width)
                    for val, width in zip(lst, widths))
    print(line)

gives:

  5   10    4
A B C D  EE F