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My goal is to have one program ask for inputs for test averages and write them to a txt file, and a second program that uses a loop to read and process the tests.txt file from the first program into a two-column table showing the test names and scores accurate to one decimal place.

What would the second program that reads the txt file look like?

Here is my code for the first program:

def main(): outfile =open('test.txt', 'w') print('Entering six tests and scores') num1 = float(input('Enter % score on this test ')) num2 = float(input('Enter % score on this test ')) num3 = float(input('Enter % score on this test ')) num4 = float(input('Enter % score on this test ')) num5 = float(input('Enter % score on this test ')) num6 = float(input('Enter % score on this test ')) outfile.write(str(num1) + '\n') outfile.write(str(num2) + '\n') outfile.write(str(num3) + '\n') outfile.write(str(num4) + '\n') outfile.write(str(num5) + '\n') outfile.write(str(num6) + '\n') outfile.close() main()

And my second program:

def main(): infile = open('test.txt' , 'r') line1 = infile.readline() line2 = infile.readline() line3 = infile.readline() line4 = infile.readline() line5 = infile.readline() line6 = infile.readline() infile.close() line1 = line1.rstrip('\n') line2 = line2.rstrip('\n') line3 = line3.rstrip('\n') line4 = line4.rstrip('\n') line5 = line5.rstrip('\n') line6 = line6.rstrip('\n') infile.close() main()
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  • So what exactly is the problem? Commented Sep 30, 2017 at 21:30
  • You can put all the lines from your .txt with: [x for i in <filename.txt>] Commented Sep 30, 2017 at 21:53
  • Any tips on adding names for each test score? Commented Sep 30, 2017 at 22:55
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    Neither function would look anything like that. You could probably condense this down to a few lines but I'm not sure I can mentally map your process. Can you give example input and output? As soon as you find yourself copy/pasting lines of code like you have, you should stop and question whether there's a for loop approach as a base, then get more sophisticated (if necessary) from there. DRY: don't repeat yourself. Commented Sep 30, 2017 at 22:58
  • Why do you need an intermediary file? Commented Sep 30, 2017 at 23:54

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First of all, there is definitely no need to repeat yourself like that - a simple loop will save you from writing such repetitive code. Nevertheless, you may want to consider using a dictionary, since that is a go-to data structure for situations like these where you need to map keys (names) to values (scores). Also, you may want to consider using with statement as a context manager, because it will automatically close the file for you after the nested block of code.

So, taking all that into account, something along the following lines should do the trick:

def first(): print('Entering six tests and scores') my_tests = {} for i in range(6): name, score = input('Enter name and score, separated by a comma: ').split(',') my_tests[name] = round(float(score), 1) with open('tests.txt', 'w') as f: for name, score in my_tests.items(): f.write('{} {}\n'.format(name, score))

...and when it comes to the second part of your problem:

def second(): with open('tests.txt', 'r') as f: tests = f.readlines() for row in tests: test = row.rstrip('\n').split() print('{}\t{}'.format(test[0], test[1]))
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Also, notice @mentalita used with to open the files instead of a direct f = open(...). Wrapping the file opening in a with context manager handles exceptions and file handle closing for you (you don't have to catch if the file doesn't exist, or worry about calling f.close())