Reading in a semicolon-delimited txt file in Python

Question

I'm trying to read a .txt file on Python, line by line.

out = open('output_path\A.txt', 'w')

with open('input_path\B.txt', 'r') as foo:
    for each_line in foo:
        # Modify each line

One problem is that I want each line to be defined by semicolon delimiters instead of line change. How would I do that?

This is what the .txt file looks like, for instance:

%IF (&YEAR LT 2010) %THEN %DO;

  PAYLC3=(1.08**(1/12)-1)*X1617;

  IF (X1918>0) THEN PAYORE3=
    (X1903 IN (12,14,21,22,25,40,41,42,43,44,49,50,52,999))*
    X1918*(%MCONV(F=X1919))*(X1905/10000);
  ELSE IF (X1923>0) THEN PAYORE3=
    (X1903 IN (12,14,21,22,25,40,41,42,43,44,49,50,52,999))*
    X1923*(%MCONV(F=X1924))*(X1905/10000);
  ELSE PAYORE3=0;
%END;

I want to be able to set each_line as a semicolon-delimited line.

Answer 1

Did you try and use the split function. That should give you a list with lines delimited with a ;. split function will be used on a string, so first read the complete data from the file.

String Split Example:

>>> a = "test;this;string;"

>>> lines = a.split(";")

>>> print lines

['test', 'this', 'string', '']

Answer 2

First replace/remove the line breaks, and then split:

a = 'this thing\n the same thing in another line\n;the other thing; and other'
print a
# this thing
# the same thing in another line
#;the other thing; and other

b = a.replace('\n','').split(';')
# b = ['this thing the same thing in another line', 'the other thing', 'and other']