Reading multiple variables from a text file in python 3.3?

Question

I have a text file in the same directory labelled test.txt. It contains the following 3 lines:

10
3
5

The output this gives me is:

My code is below.

f = open('test.txt',"r")
test1 =(f.readline(1))
test2 = (f.readline(2))
test3 = (f.readline(3))
print (test1)
print (test2)
print (test3)

How would i go about making it pick up the full variables? Ie test1 = 10, test2=3, test3 = 5? Very new to python :(

@MortezaIpo: What in heavens name does that gist have to do with what the OP is asking about? — Martijn Pieters
– Martijn Pieters, Commented May 23, 2014 at 9:45
@MortezaIpo: sure, but it isn't. Not in any way that I can see. Perhaps you meant to link to a different gist (that link is over a year old), but in general a link to a gist without explanation isn't much help to begin with. — Martijn Pieters
– Martijn Pieters, Commented May 23, 2014 at 9:49
@MartijnPieters I see. you are right. it just has a simple description. — mortymacs
– mortymacs, Commented May 23, 2014 at 10:02

Martijn Pieters · Accepted Answer · 2014-05-23 09:52:46Z

1

You don't have to give f.readline() an argument at all:

test1 = f.readline()
test2 = f.readline()
test3 = f.readline()

otherwise you limit the number of characters read. f.readline(1) does not mean 'read line 1'; instead you say: 'read a line, but no more than 1 character should be read'.

Quoting from the IOBase.readline() docs:

Read and return one line from the stream. If size is specified, at most size bytes will be read.

Emphasis mine.

edited May 23, 2014 at 9:52

answered May 23, 2014 at 9:37

Martijn Pieters

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6 Comments

cheesus Over a year ago

So simple, so elegant, so much noobiness on my part. Thanks for the explanation, i appreciate it!

cheesus Over a year ago

Okay, heres my problem now. It can print the item happily, but when i recall the variable its giving me things like "10\n". So i did a bit of research and i've been trying to use rstrip like the following, to strip out the \n when i call the variable later, however it ends up giving me a variable such as v1 = ''. Not sure how to embed code into this so ill put it on paste bin at: Link @Martijn Pieters

Martijn Pieters Over a year ago

@user2809413: yes, the newline is included. You can strip that off; test1.rstrip('\n') would remove any newlines from the end of the string, for example (returning the altered string).

cheesus Over a year ago

Sorry, not really sure how to implement that? Where does the test1 come from?

Martijn Pieters Over a year ago

@user2809413: You used test1 as a variable in your question.

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