How do I index a list to find a specific value and its location?

Question

I am trying to write a code which will store movies on a list which I can retrieve by asking to add a movie either by its position or to check if it's on the list. So far, I have been working on the retrieving part, but I keep getting an error where "descriptor 'index' for 'list' objects doesn't apply to a 'str' object". This is my code so far

myFile = open("movies.txt", "a")
more = "yes"
while more.lower() == "yes":
    movie = input("Please enter a movie title: ")
    myFile.write(movie + '\n')
    more = input("Would you like another item? Enter 'yes' or 'no'. ")
    find = input("Would you like to find a movie? Enter 'yes' or 'no'. ")
    myFile.close()
    if find == "yes":
        myFile = open("movies.txt")
        xlist = list[myFile]
        f2 = input("What movie would like to find?")
        f3 = xlist.index(f2)
        print(f2 + " is in number " + f3 + " on the list")

Does this answer your question? [How to read a file line-by-line into a list?](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3277503/how-to-read-a-file-line-by-line-into-a-list) — Thomas Weller, Dec 09 '21 at 15:03
Use myFile.readlines() which will read the file line by line instead of list[myFile] — VRComp, Dec 09 '21 at 15:06
Well now at this point the problem is that the output is: 'str' object has no attribute 'restrip'. Just tried the readlines() but it just says that my value (random a) is not on the list — ASimpleWatermelon, Dec 09 '21 at 15:12
[`rstrip`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/stdtypes.html#str.rstrip), not `restrip`. r is for right and l is for left. — Thomas Weller, Dec 09 '21 at 17:43

loopassembly · Answer 1 · 2021-12-09T18:33:42.013

1

Explanation

In line number 11 of your code

xlist = list[myFile]

for making list of word that contain in file movies.txt you can do something like this

xlist=myFile.read().splitlines()

CODE

myFile = open("movies.txt", "a")
more = "yes"
while more.lower() == "yes":
    movie = input("Please enter a movie title: ")
    myFile.write(f'{movie}\n')
    more = input("Would you like another item? Enter 'yes' or 'no'. ")
    find = input("Would you like to find a movie? Enter 'yes' or 'no'. ")
    myFile.close()
    if find == "yes":
        myFile = open("movies.txt")
        xlist=myFile.read().splitlines()
        print(xlist)
        f2 = input("What movie would like to find?")
        f3 = xlist.index(f2)
        print(f'{f2}  is in number {f3} on the list')

OUTPUT

Please enter a movie title: money-heist
Would you like another item? Enter 'yes' or 'no'. no
Would you like to find a movie? Enter 'yes' or 'no'. yes
['Dark', 'money-heist']
What movie would like to find?Dark
Dark  is in number 0 on the list

edited Dec 09 '21 at 18:33

answered Dec 09 '21 at 15:32

loopassembly

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Please explain where you made changes to the original code and why. Otherwise it's just a copy/paste action for OP without any learning effect – Thomas Weller Dec 09 '21 at 17:45
okk thx @ThomasWeller for remining me this. just a sec i am doing the changes – loopassembly Dec 09 '21 at 18:10
I DID THE CHANGES IS IT ALRIGHT NOW @ThomasWeller – loopassembly Dec 09 '21 at 18:40
so going through the edited code, and to make sure I understand this, .splitlines() separates the lines into usable information from the file, and the squiggly brackets read the variables in a different way? – ASimpleWatermelon Dec 10 '21 at 14:33
and by using f'{movie} and f'{f2}, we can connect the two for every line? It makes more sense to do this than to parse through it using a loop. Thank you very much! – ASimpleWatermelon Dec 10 '21 at 14:50
splitlines() is used to split set of wold line by line in a text file and convert that into a list – loopassembly Dec 10 '21 at 15:45
And if this ans help you please mark this ans as accepted @ASimpleWatermelon – loopassembly Dec 10 '21 at 15:50

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 15 '21 at 20:56

The problem is not in xlist but in f2, because input() returns string. If entering number 2, your line would look as if you wrote:

f3 = xlist.index("2")

Instead, cast input to integer:

try:
    f2 = int(input("What movie would like to find?"))
except ValueError:
    exit("Invalid number")

How do I index a list to find a specific value and its location?

2 Answers2