How to fix IndexError: String index out of range - Python

Question

I am trying to make a parser for my text adventure. I used a text file called test.txt. I keep getting IndexError: string index out of range. How can I fix this?

parser.py

def parse(file):
  data = {}
  
  with open(file, "r") as f:
    lines = f.readlines()
    f.close()

  for line in lines:
    line = line.strip()
    
    if line[0] == "@":
      name = line[1:]
      name = name.replace("\n", "")

      data[name] = {}

    if line[0] == "-":
      prop = line.split(":")
      prop_name = prop[0].replace("-", "")
      prop_name = prop_name.replace("\n", "")
      
      prop_desc = prop[1][1:]
      prop_desc = prop_desc.replace("\n", "")

      data[name][prop_name] = prop_desc

    

  return data
      
    
print(parse("test.txt"))

test.txt

@hello

  -desc: Hello World! Lorem ipsum
  -north: world

@world

  -desc: World Hello! blah
  -south: hello

Since some of the lines are empty, when you access line[0] to check, it may thus raise this error. — jh316
– jh316, Commented Dec 28, 2021 at 6:57
Welcome to Stack Overflow. Please read How to Ask and stackoverflow.com/help/minimal-reproducible-example and ericlippert.com/2014/03/05/how-to-debug-small-programs and meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/359146. It is your responsibility to figure out where the error occurs, and try to diagnose what is going on. What index value being used? What is being indexed into? Where did that value come from? Are you confused about how it gets to that point? Do you understand why the operation is invalid? — Karl Knechtel
– Karl Knechtel, Commented Dec 28, 2021 at 7:14

mozway · Accepted Answer · 2021-12-28 07:00:01Z

1

You're stripping the newlines (line = line.strip()), so if a line is empty, there is just an empty string and line[0] is out of range.

You should test if the line is truthy:

if line and line[0] == "-":

Or, better, in the beginning of the loop, skip blank lines:

for line in lines:
    if line == '\n':
        continue
    # rest of code

answered Dec 28, 2021 at 7:00

mozway

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Comments

Shireen · Accepted Answer · 2021-12-28 07:14:16Z

0

Since there is many "\n" in your text, you should ignore them in file reading. try this:

  with open(file, "r") as f:
    lines = f.readline().splitlines()
    f.close()

answered Dec 28, 2021 at 7:14

Shireen

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