data.dat python

Question

say i have the following data in a .dat file:

*A-1-2-3-4*B-8-2-4*C-4-2-5-1-5

how can i print the these data like this?:

A : 1 2 3 4

B : 8 2 4

C : 4 2 5 1 5

randomly print any one number for each letter. A, B and C can be any word. and the amount of the numbers can be different. i know that it has some thing to do with the * and the -

Answer 1

Read in the file, then split() the characters:

contents = open("file.dat").read()
for line in contents.split("*"):
  if not line: continue  # Remove initial empty string.
  line = line.strip()   # Remove whitespace from beginning/end of lines.
  items = line.split("-")
  print items[0], ":", " ".join(items[1:])

Answer 2

Also another option

line = "*A-1-2-3-4*B-8-2-4*C-4-2-5-1-5"
s = filter(bool, line.split("*"))
for i in s:
    i = i.split("-")
    print i[0], ":", i[1:]

Answer 3

Use .split()

data_string = '*A-1-2-3-4*B-8-2-4*C-4-2-5-1-5' #read in the data

data = data_string.split('*') #split the data at the '*'

for entry in data:
    items = entry.split('-')  #split data entries at the '-'
    letter = items[0]         #you know that the first item is a letter
    if not items[0]: continue #exclude the empty string
    print letter, ':',
    for num in items[1:]:
        print int(num),
    print '\n',