Why is my code getting the wrong part of the txt string?

Question

The issue I have is that I'm not able to get the correct part of my txt string. The txt string also has to be in the current order, I can't switch role and name.

   txt = \
    '''
    Company name
    leader: Claire
    cashier: Ole
    '''

    def role(name):
        start= txt.find(name)-len(name)
        end= txt.find('\n', start)
        return txt[start:end]

If I type role("Ole") I expect the output to be 'cashier'. The output I am getting though is 'r: Ole'.

What do you expect `txt.find(name)-len(name)` to do? it will always be negative which will mess the indexing when you use `start` — DeepSpace, Oct 07 '19 at 19:12
@DeepSpace sorry, I find it a bit confusing. my intention for txt.find(name)-len(name) was that it would take the length of the name you enter in the function and start from right before the colon? — Daniel E, Oct 07 '19 at 19:15
Negative indexing does not work this way. See https://stackoverflow.com/questions/509211/understanding-slice-notation — DeepSpace, Oct 07 '19 at 19:17

Jeff R · Answer 1 · 2019-10-07T20:03:09.247

0

stringy = "cashier: Ole"
stringy.partition(':')[0]

you can use .partition and bring only the first element

this will work but if there is anything diff about your string it may break down.

stringy = """    Company name
    leader: Claire
    cashier: Ole"""
def role(name):
    slice = stringy.partition(name)[0]
    role_str = slice.split(' ')[-2]
    return role_str

edited Oct 07 '19 at 20:03

answered Oct 07 '19 at 19:26

Jeff R

90
8

Thank you for your suggestion, but would this work with my current function? – Daniel E Oct 07 '19 at 19:32
is the txt at the top of your question an actual .txt file? – Jeff R Oct 07 '19 at 19:36
It's just a string that I called txt, sorry if this was a bit misleading – Daniel E Oct 07 '19 at 19:39
i would probably store it as a list or dictionary instead of a string. Does it have to be a string? – Jeff R Oct 07 '19 at 19:47

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Oct 07 '19 at 19:37

You can create a dictionary that associates the names to the correspondent roles, so that it becomes very easy to retrieve them even in a much longer list:

txt = \
'''
Company name
leader: Claire
cashier: Ole
'''

t = txt.split()
roles = {t[i] : t[i-1].strip(':') for i in range(3, len(t), 2)}

def role(name):
    return roles[name]

Once set up, it's pretty intuitive.

Why is my code getting the wrong part of the txt string?

2 Answers2