Importing Text Files With Variables Into Python

My Objective: The purpose the program I am creating is to have the user enter the name of an element. Then python reads into an external file that finds the value that the requeste

Solution 1:

You can parse the text file(as others suggested) which if you ask me would be little unnecessary complexity, or you can use more programming friendly data format. I suggest using json or yaml whichever suits you.

If you are using json, than you can do as follows:-

# rename gas.txt to gas.json
{
    'hydrogen': 1,
    'helium': 2,
    'lithium': 3
}

# in your code
import json
file = open('gas.json')
elements = json.loads(file.read())
print(elements['helium'])

Solution 2:

This should do what you need:

gas = {}
with open('gas.txt', 'r') as gasfile:
    for line in gasfile:
        name, value = line.replace(' ', '').strip('=')
        gas[name] = value


# The gas dictionary now contains the appropriate key/value pairs

print(gas['helium'])

Solution 3:

This may help

from collections import defaultdict
FILE = open("gas.txt","r")
GAS = defaultdict(str)
for line in FILE:
    gasdata = line.strip().split('=')
    GAS[gasdata[0].strip()] = gasdata[1].strip()

print GAS['carbon dioxide'] # 4

gas.txt is:

hydrogen = 1
helium =  2
lithium = 3
carbon dioxide = 4