How can I split items in a txt in python?

Question

I have the following code in a text file:

Host: 0.0.0.0 Port: 80
                        

This is my python code:

with open('config.txt', 'r') as configfile:
    lines = configfile.readlines()
    lines.split(': ')
    HOST = lines[1]
    PORT = lines[3]

print(f'Your host is {HOST} and port is {PORT}')

But I get this error:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "test.py", line 3, in <module>
    lines.split(': ')
AttributeError: 'list' object has no attribute 'split'

How can I fix this? I'm fairly new to python

Answer 1

There are two issues here:

• readlines() return a list of all the lines in the file
• split returns a list, it's not an in-place operation

with open('config.txt', 'r') as configfile:
    lines = configfile.readlines() # lines will be a list of all the lines in the file
    line_split = lines[0].split(': ') # split returns a list, it's not an in-place operation
    print(line_split)
    HOST = line_split[1].split()[0]
    PORT = line_split[2]

print(f'Your host is {HOST} and port is {PORT}')