Converting a list of strings to a list of integers in Python

Question

I have the following code which is used to extract a substring from each line of text on a file and put in a list of strings.

distribution = []

with open("./Output_Files/datafile.txt", "r") as fileRead:
         for line in fileRead:
             distr_chop = line.split()[3:]
             distribution.append(distr_chop)

Then I convert each string in the list to an integer:

distribution = [int(i) for i in distribution]

However, I get an error when printing the list.

TypeError: int() argument must be a string, a bytes-like object or a number, not 'list'

What is wrong with my code?
What other way could I extract the substring directly to an integer?

Each line is turned into a list. Do you want to keep that structure. Should each item in distribution be a list of the integers from that line? — tdelaney
– tdelaney, Commented Aug 29, 2020 at 2:42

Seyram Komla Sapaty · Accepted Answer · 2020-08-29 02:47:58Z

1

distr_chop is a list.

If it is a single element list, you can do

...
distribution.append(distr_chop[0])

# then proceed to use the list comprehension to convert each element to an integer

answered Aug 29, 2020 at 2:47

Seyram Komla Sapaty

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user1424589 · Accepted Answer · 2020-08-29 02:53:06Z

1

dist_chop is in this case a list of 4th through nth "words" of the line thus distribution is an array of arrays which is not what I imagine you wanted.

use distribution += distr_chop if you actually wanted all the things after the 3rd or distribution.append(line.split())[3] if you just wanted just one element from each line

answered Aug 29, 2020 at 2:53

user1424589

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