Elif Condition in Python

Question

I have some Python code which needs to take a string input from a text file named varfile.txt and conditions to be applied on that data and print the output. The code is as follows:

file = open("varfile.txt", "r")
lines = file.readlines()
e= str(lines[1]);
print(e)
if  e == '<0.1%':
        print("1")
elif  e == '(0.1-25)%':
        print("2")
elif  e == '(0.25-0.5)%':
        print("3")
elif  e == '(0.5-1)%':
        print("4")
elif  e == '>1%':
        print("5")
else:
        print("0")

The ouput is as follows:

(0.25-0.5)%  
0

Even though e value is printed as (0.25-0.5)%, it is not comparing with the condition in the elif clause and giving 0 as an output though the output should be 3. Could you please suggest where I am going wrong?

I think you are using an extra space on the elif condition. It should be e == '(0.25-0.5)%' not ' (0.25-0.5)%' — Aswin P J
– Aswin P J, Commented May 4, 2016 at 7:58
ya..that is fine, you can see that it is printing the right value but there is some error in comparison — Goutham Pathuri
– Goutham Pathuri, Commented May 4, 2016 at 7:58
Generally, each line ends in a newline character, so you should be testing for e=='(0.25-0.5)%\n'. — acdr
– acdr, Commented May 4, 2016 at 8:01

ErikR · Accepted Answer · 2016-05-04 08:00:08Z

7

According to this tutorial files.readlines() does not strip the ending new line characters from the ends of the lines.

You can use e.strip('\n') to return a string with newlines removed, e.g.:

e = e.strip('\n')
if e == ...:
elif ...

answered May 4, 2016 at 8:00

ErikR

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1 Comment

Byte Commander Over a year ago

I would recommend stripping all whitespace characters instead of only newlines before comparing, because files that users might change can easily contain spaces in the end of a line, which would else result in a hardly understandable error. So simply use e.strip().

Emil Vikström · Accepted Answer · 2016-05-04 08:00:21Z

1

readlines includes the newline character.

answered May 4, 2016 at 8:00

Emil Vikström

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