Fill in spaces in list

Question

I'm importing data with XLRD. The overall project involves pulling data from existing Excel files, but there are merged cells. Essentially, an operator is accounting for time on one of 3 shifts. As such, for each date on the grid they're working with, there are 3 columns (one for each shift). I want to change the UI as little as possible. As such, when I pull the list of the dates covered on the sheet, I want it to have the same date 3 times in a row, once for each shift.

Here's what I get:

[41665.0, '', '', 41666.0, '', '', 41667.0, '', '', 41668.0, '', '', 41669.0, '', '', 41670.0, '', '', 41671.0, '', '']

Here's what I want:

[41665.0, 41665.0, 41665.0, 41666.0, 41666.0, 41666.0, 41667.0, 41667.0, 41667.0, 41668.0, 41668.0, 41668.0, 41669.0, 41669.0, 41669.0, 41670.0, 41670.0, 41670.0, 41671.0, 41671.0, 41671.0]

I got this list with:

dates = temp_sheet.row_values(2)[2:]

I don't know if the dates will always show up as floats. I was thinking something along the lines of:

dates = [i for i in dates if not i.isspace() else j]

It throws an error when it gets to the first value, which is a float. .isnumeric() is a string operator...there has to be a much more elegant way. I found this answer but it seems much more involved than what I believe I need.

It shouldn't ever be '', and if it is, there's a bigger problem. :) — mauve, Dec 04 '14 at 14:30

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 04 '14 at 14:25

1

I dont think this is a good application for a comprehension, and an explicit loop would be better:

lst = [41665.0, '', '', 41666.0, '', '', 41667.0, '', '', 41668.0, '', '', 41669.0, '', '', 41670.0, '', >>> lst = [41665.0, '', '', 41666.0, '', '', 41667.0, '', '', 41668.0, '', '', 41669.0, '', '', 41670.0, '', '', 41671.0, '', '']
>>> temp = lst[0]
>>> nlst = []
>>> for i in lst:
...     if i: temp = i
...
...     nlst.append(temp)
...
>>> nlst
[41665.0, 41665.0, 41665.0, 41666.0, 41666.0, 41666.0, 41667.0, 41667.0, 41667.0, 41668.0, 41668.0, 41668.0, 41669.0, 41669.0, 41669.0, 41670.0, 41670.0, 41670.0, 41671.0, 41671.0, 41671.0]

answered Dec 04 '14 at 14:25

wnnmaw

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You will end up ignoring 0, 0.0, etc – Ashwini Chaudhary Dec 04 '14 at 14:30
Yes, but ```0``` in Excel formatted as a date is ```1/0/1900```, which is an invalid date so I think it ought to be cut out – wnnmaw Dec 04 '14 at 14:33
This is time tracking for now and into the future. It is a good point, but this will work for my needs. – mauve Dec 04 '14 at 14:35

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 04 '14 at 14:52

Another solution,

>>> l = [41665.0, '', '', 41666.0, '', '', 41667.0, '', '', 41668.0, '', '', 41669.0, '', '', 41670.0, '', '', 41671.0, '', '']
>>> lst = [ item for item in l if item is not '']
>>> [ v for item in zip(lst,lst,lst) for v in item ]
[41665.0, 41665.0, 41665.0, 41666.0, 41666.0, 41666.0, 41667.0, 41667.0, 41667.0, 41668.0, 41668.0, 41668.0, 41669.0, 41669.0, 41669.0, 41670.0, 41670.0, 41670.0, 41671.0, 41671.0, 41671.0]

Fill in spaces in list

2 Answers2