How do I separate a each text file line into a separate lists?

Question

say i have a text file which contains the following:

Bob 15 M
John 16 M
Jen 15 F

How do I put it into a list so that the list values are:

listOne = ['Bob', '15', 'M']
listTwo = ['John', '16', 'M']
listThree = ['Jen', '15', 'F']

Thanks

Answer 1

just split it and unpack it

bob, john, jen = [a.split() for a in open(file)]

Answer 2

Use open file and split():

with open('text.txt') as f:
    strings = f.readlines()
    data = [string.split() for string in strings]

Answer 3

You can apply string.split to each line in the file:

import string

with open('text.txt') as text:
    result = map(string.split, text)

With Python 3, you need to materialise the map, otherwise the file doesn't get read before it's closed:

    result = list(map(string.split, text))

However, string.split is deprecated and would only apply to str objects, not unicode. A more general solution is to create a list comprehension:

    result = [line.split() for line in text]

Answer 4

with open('text.txt') as file:
    lines = file.readlines()        # Creates a list of lines
    for line in lines:
        line = line.split()         # Split each line into list of "words"

This gives you a nested list which is probably sensible. If you desperately want 3 lists, use this:

evalvar = ""
count = 0
for line in lines:
    count += 1
    evalvar += "list"+str(count)+" = "+str(line)+";"
exec(evalvar)                                         # Runs the evalvar which has
                                                      # code in it.