Python(3.x) - Opening File and Removing the Quotation Marks when reading file

Question

I'm currently trying to load a .txt file that has the following inside the file:

['Chest', ['bench', 'incline'], [2, 1], [10, 10], [10, 20, 10]], 'Chest', ['decline'], [1], [1], [10]

When I load the file, read the information on the file and store it on a variable named content:

    self.file_name = filedialog.askopenfilename()
    if self.file_name is None:
        return
    with open(self.file_name) as f:
        content = f.read().splitlines()

When I print out content:

    print(content)

I get the following output:

["['Chest', ['bench', 'incline'], [2, 1], [10, 10], [10, 20, 10]], 'Chest', ['decline'], [1], [1], [10]"]

The problem is that there's quotation marks when it prints. Could there be anyway to get rid of the ""? The reason is because since it's a two dimensonal list and print([0][1]) I get the result of ' instead of chest

Answer 1

If your content contains syntax representing correct python literal code, you can parse it directly into python data:

content = ["['Chest', ['bench', 'incline'], [2, 1], [10, 10], [10, 20, 10]], 'Chest', ['decline'], [1], [1], [10]"]

import ast
a_tuple = ast.literal_eval(content[0])
print(a_tuple)

Results in a tupple containing the parased string:

(['Chest', ['bench', 'incline'], [2, 1], [10, 10], [10, 20, 10]], 'Chest', ['decline'], [1], [1], [10])

Answer 2

print(content[0])

The content variable is holding an array of a single string. When you did print(content[0][1]), you printed the second character of the string. When printing a string, the outer quotes are not shown, but when printing an array, the outer quotes are shown (so you can see where each string begins and ends).