Putting backslashes into a string

Question

I have a large number of long text files that I want to convert into LaTex-formatted tables. Here's a short example of one of the files:

List of the best combinations (with |r-value| > 0.5)
Combination &   r value &   no.obs. &   Kendall's tau
============================================================
B - V   &   0.580019    &   11863   &   1.000000
B - R   &   0.574867    &   11863   &   1.000000
V - B   &   -0.580019   &   11863   &   1.000000
R - B   &   -0.574867   &   11863   &   1.000000

Highest r-value of 0.580019 occurred for B - V
Lowest r-value of -0.580019 occurred for V - B

I need to convert this into a table in my LaTex document, so it needs to be formatted like:

List of the best combinations (with |r-value| > 0.5)\\
\hline
Combination &   r value &   no.obs. &   Kendall's tau\\
============================================================\\
B - V   &   0.580019    &   11863   &   1.000000\\
\hline
B - R   &   0.574867    &   11863   &   1.000000\\
\hline
V - B   &   -0.580019   &   11863   &   1.000000\\
\hline
R - B   &   -0.574867   &   11863   &   1.000000\\
\hline

Highest r-value of 0.580019 occurred for B - V\\
Lowest r-value of -0.580019 occurred for V - B\\

The real files will be dozens of lines long, so it will be impractical to do it by hand.

I've tried

filename = file+'.txt'
with open(filename, 'r') as infile:
    new_filename = file+'_table.txt'
    with open(new_filename, 'w') as outfile:
        lines = infile.readlines()
        for line in lines:
            end_of_line = r'\\'
            outfile.write(line + end_of_line)
            outfile.write(r'\\hline')

as well as the suggestions from here, but my output is

\List of the best combinations (with |r-value| > 0.5)
\Combination    &   r value &   no.obs. &   Kendall's tau
\============================================================
\B - V  &   0.580019    &   11863   &   1.000000
\B - R  &   0.574867    &   11863   &   1.000000
\V - B  &   -0.580019   &   11863   &   1.000000
\R - B  &   -0.574867   &   11863   &   1.000000
\
\Highest r-value of 0.580019 occurred for B - V
\Lowest r-value of -0.580019 occurred for V - B
\
\

How can I insert \\ and \hline into the outfile verbatim? Or is there any other tool I could use to convert to LaTex formatting?

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Sep 14 '18 at 05:26

In .txt file actually there is a \n in the end of the sentence! in order to add something at the end of the sentence, we should be careful to this.

I think you can add another line in "for line in lines" to solve this! line = line.replace("\n", " ") end_of_line = r'\\' ... and follow

if you want to create another line just use: outfile.write('\n') outfile.write(r'\hline') outfile.write('\n')

I help this can be useful for you.

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 17 '18 at 01:01

Eventually fixed it thus:

with open(filename, 'r') as infile:
        new_filename = file+'_table.txt'
        with open(new_filename, 'w') as outfile:
            lines = infile.readlines()
            outfile.write(r'\begin{tabular}{|c|c|c|c|}')
            for line in lines[1:-3]:
                if line.startswith('='):
                    pass
                else:
                    line = line.replace('\n', ' '+r'\\'+'\n')
                    outfile.write(line)
                    outfile.write(r'\hline' + '\n')
            outfile.write(r'\end{tabular}')

for dealing with the details of my file.

Putting backslashes into a string

2 Answers2