Issue with checking whether a string is in a file in python

Question

user_word = input("guess a word: ")

with open("C:/Users/Callum_test/Documents/Python/dog.txt") as dictionary:
    if user_word is dictionary.read():
        print("Well done, you got a", len(user_input), "letter word")

    else:
        print("That's not a word!")

Hello,

I've created the above code but for some reason it can't find the word in the file? I've not done anything like this for a while and have no idea how to get it working. The code functions seemingly fine but no input is found in the text file.

thanks, Callum

you may need to strip any newline characters off the users input first try user_word = input("guess a word: ").strip('\n') — chickity china chinese chicken
– chickity china chinese chicken, Commented Jan 29, 2019 at 18:47
cheers for the reply but that's still not worked. Do you have any other ideas? — user3258159
– user3258159, Commented Jan 29, 2019 at 18:49
Ah my mistake, you have a typo is, change to in: if user_word in dictionary.read(): — chickity china chinese chicken
– chickity china chinese chicken, Commented Jan 29, 2019 at 18:51

Cleve Green · Accepted Answer · 2019-01-29 19:14:58Z

1

Your code had many mistakes, how you were doing it is fine, just you messed up here and there. First off you didn't properly open the file, you need to set the mode as read(r):

with open("C:/Users/Callum_test/Documents/Python/dog.txt", "r") as dictionary:

Next you said "is" instead of "in" if you want to check if something is IN a file, list, string etc...

    if user_word in dictionary.read():

Finally, you changed user_word to user_input for some reason

        print("Well done, you got a", len(user_word), "letter word")

Here is the fixed and completed code:

user_word = input("guess a word: ")

with open("C:/Users/Callum_test/Documents/Python/dog.txt", "r") as dictionary:
    if user_word in dictionary.read():
        print("Well done, you got a", len(user_word), "letter word")
    else:
        print("That's not a word!")

Hope this helped

answered Jan 29, 2019 at 19:14

Cleve Green

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2 Comments

user3258159 Over a year ago

Thanks thats great

Cleve Green Over a year ago

No problem, I'm happy to help, if you wouldn't mind marking it as correct would be great.

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