Marc 'BlackJack' Rintsch wrote: > On Sun, 26 Aug 2007 06:05:11 +0000, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > >> I am trying to use python for file processing. >> Suppose I have a file like this: >> I want to build a Hashmap between the line "begin_QOS_statistics" and >> "end_QOS_statistics" >> and for each line I want to put the first text as the key of the hash >> table and the second text as the value. > > Work through the tutorial, experiment a little in the interactive > interpreter and then just do it. You need to `open()` the file, iterate > over its lines in a ``for``-loop, decide to when it is time to start > processing lines, and then `str.split()` the lines and put them into a > `dict()`. This is a neat little project to start learning the language. > > Ciao, > Marc 'BlackJack' Rintsch
Just posted this on Python Tutor, might give you a start : nameFile = open(r'/path/to/file.txt', 'rU') phonebook = {} for line in nameFile : phonebook.setdefault(line[0].upper(), []).append(line.strip('\n')) for item, names in phonebook.iteritems() : names.sort() print phonebook HTH -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list