list in txt file python code example

Example 1: convert python list to text file

# define list of places
places = ['Berlin', 'Cape Town', 'Sydney', 'Moscow']

with open('listfile.txt', 'w') as filehandle:
    for listitem in places:
        filehandle.write('%s\n' % listitem)

Example 2: python read text file into a list

text_file = open("filename.dat", "r")
lines = text_file.readlines()
print lines
print len(lines)
text_file.close()

Example 3: how to save python list to file

import json
a = [1,2,3]
with open('test.txt', 'w') as f:
    f.write(json.dumps(a))

#Now read the file back into a Python list object
with open('test.txt', 'r') as f:
    a = json.loads(f.read())

Example 4: python read text file to list

with open(filename) as f:
    content = f.readlines()
# you may also want to remove whitespace characters like `\n` at the end of each line
content = [x.strip() for x in content]