Skipping over the first line of a text file using readlines() in python

Question

I'm a beginner programmer trying to build a password manager in python. I've been trying to write an function that allows you to view the contents of the text file by printing them to the console. `

    def view():
with open("passwords.txt", "r") as p:
    for line in p.readlines():
        if line == p.readlines()[0]:
            pass
        data = line.rstrip()
        user, passw = data.split("|")
        print("User: ", user, "| password: ", passw)

for context the very first line of my text file is a heading so I want to skip over the first line. I thought that the readlines() method returns a list of all strings in the text file, however when I try accessing the first line through indexing I get an 'IndexError: list index out of range' error. What is the correct approach of skipping the first line, or any line for that matter of a text file? thank you this is my first time posting on here

Answer 1

You can use p.readline() or next(readline) to skip a line, before you loop over the remaining lines. This will read a line, and then just throw it away.

foo.txt :

this is the end
hold your breath
and count to ten

Code:

with open('foo.txt', 'r') as f:
    f.readline()
    for line in f:
        print(line, end='')

# hold your breath
# and count to ten

Answer 2

You can use readlines()[n:] to skip the first n line(s).

with open('passwords.txt', 'r') as p:
    lines = p.readlines()[1:]  # skipping first line
    for line in lines:
        data = line.rstrip()
        user, passw = data.split("|")
        print("User: ", user, "| password: ", passw)