Efficient python for loop using txt files

Question

So, I'm working on a python project (I'm a beginner), but I'm having trouble comparing a list to words in a text file. It's for a program that should unscramble words.

your_chars = input("Input characters:")
complete_list = []
final_lst = []
for current in range(len(your_chars)):
    a = [i for i in your_chars]
    for y in range(current):
        a = [x + i for i in your_chars for x in a]
    complete_list = complete_list+a
with open("P:/words.txt", "r") as file:
    for i in complete_list
        for x in file:
            final_lst.append(x)
print(final_lst)

I think it should work, but obviously it's not very efficient (especially the last three lines), but I can't think of another way to write it.

Ex:

input: yhe

output: hey

Any tips?

What exactly is the complete_list doing here? It looks like you repeat the lines a large number of times. — willeM_ Van Onsem
– willeM_ Van Onsem, Commented Aug 28, 2018 at 17:56
You're iterating through the text file twice, and you never close the input file. Try with open(..) as file and for line in file. — Gigaflop
– Gigaflop, Commented Aug 28, 2018 at 17:57
The last nested loop iterates on complete_liast, but doesn't use i. That just a purposeless repeat. — hpaulj
– hpaulj, Commented Aug 28, 2018 at 17:57

Rob Truxal · Accepted Answer · 2018-08-29 18:11:56Z

1

Here's a solution that can handle text-input with words of arbitrary length:

from collections import Counter

your_text = input('input characters')
with open('P:/words.txt', 'r') as infile:
    file_text = infile.read()

old_words = {
    str(sorted(Counter(w).items())): w
    for w in file_text.split()
}

for w in your_text.split():
    i = str(sorted(Counter(w).items()))
    if i in old_words:
        print(old_words[i])

It doesn't need to check each permutation of input characters; it matches when the count of letters in an input word is the same as one from your input file.

This was my 1st solution and works, but do not input a string with a word longer than 10 chars or it will crash your computer:

from itertools import permutations

perms_list = []
perms = []
matches = []
your_chars = input("input characters")
your_words = your_chars.split()

for word in your_words:
    perms_list.append([i for i in permutations(word)])
for word in perms_list:
    for perm in word:
        perms.append(''.join(list(perm)))

with open('P:/words.txt', 'r') as comparefile:
    file_contents = comparefile.read().split()
for permutation in perms:
    if permutation in file_contents:
        matches.append(permutation)
print(matches)

edited Aug 29, 2018 at 18:11

answered Aug 28, 2018 at 18:14

Rob Truxal

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5 Comments

Julia Fasick Over a year ago

the issue i was having is comparing the contents of the string complete_list with the words.txt file. If a word occurred in both, they will be added to final_list, which will be printed to the console.

Rob Truxal Over a year ago

if P:/words.txt is really big, this might not be the most efficient way to go about it.

Rob Truxal Over a year ago

@BenjaminFasick - Tested it and working for me. Lmk if it is for you.

Rob Truxal Over a year ago

This is actually kind of an interesting problem. Going to write a better solution which won't crash python if you type in a super-long string, and that can handle a massive file.

Julia Fasick Over a year ago

Works for me! It seems like a pretty cool way to handle it, definitely exposed me to some new concepts, so thanks so much!!

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