It's been several years since I've needed to write a python script so I'm
asking for advice to get me started with a brief script to separate names
and email addresses in one file into two separate files: salutation.txt and
emails.txt.

An example of the input file:

Calvin
calvin@example.com

Hobbs
hobbs@some.com

Nancy
nancy@herown.com

Sluggo
sluggo@another.com

Having extracted salutations and addresses I'll write a bash script using
sed and mailx to associate a message file with each name and email address.

I'm unsure where to start given my lack of recent experience.

TIA,

Rich

On 11/01/2024 19.08, Rich Shepard wrote:
> It's been several years since I've needed to write a python script so I'm
> asking for advice to get me started with a brief script to separate names
> and email addresses in one file into two separate files: salutation.txt and
> emails.txt.
>
> An example of the input file:
>
> Calvin
> calvin@example.com
>
> Hobbs
> hobbs@some.com
>
> Nancy
> nancy@herown.com
>
> Sluggo
> sluggo@another.com
>
> Having extracted salutations and addresses I'll write a bash script using
> sed and mailx to associate a message file with each name and email address.

Why not to use bash script for all?

bye,

--

piergiorgio

Rich Shepard <rshepard@appl-ecosys.com> writes:
>separate names and email addresses

(Warning: execution of the following script will overwrite
[DELETE!] files opened with 'w'!)

# create source
data = '''Calvin\ncalvin@example.com\nHobbs\nhobbs@some.com
Nancy\nnancy@herown.com\nSluggo\nsluggo@another.com'''
fn = "data20240111192219+0100"
with open( fn, "w" )as sink: print( data, file=sink )

# split source into two files
with open( fn )as source: file = source.read()
lines = file.split( '\n' )[ :-1 ]
with open( 'salutation.txt', 'w' )as f: print( lines[ 0::2 ], file=f )
with open( 'emails.txt', 'w' )as f: print( lines[ 1::2 ], file=f )

# show the two result files
with open( 'salutation.txt' )as file: print( file.read() )
with open( 'emails.txt' )as file: print( file.read() )

On Thu, 11 Jan 2024, Piergiorgio Sartor via Python-list wrote:

> Why not to use bash script for all?

Piergiorgio,

That's certainly a possibility, and may well be better than python for this
task.

Thank you,

Rich

Am 11.01.24 um 20:53 schrieb Rich Shepard via Python-list:
> On Thu, 11 Jan 2024, Piergiorgio Sartor via Python-list wrote:
>
>> Why not to use bash script for all?
>
> Piergiorgio,
>
> That's certainly a possibility, and may well be better than python
> for this
> task.
>
> Thank you,
>
> Rich

awk '/@/ {print >>"emails.txt";next};NF{print >>"salutation.txt"}'
input.txt

SCNR ;-)

On 12/01/24 08:53, Rich Shepard via Python-list wrote:
> On Thu, 11 Jan 2024, Piergiorgio Sartor via Python-list wrote:
>
>> Why not to use bash script for all?
>
> Piergiorgio,
>
> That's certainly a possibility, and may well be better than python for this
> task.

(sitting in a meeting with little to occupy my mind, whilst tidying
email-InBox came back to this conversation)

In the bare-description of the task, I might agree to sticking with
BASH. The OP did say that the output from this will become input to a
sed/mailx task!
(we trust, does not involve spamming innocent folk)

However, that task could also be accomplished in Python. So, unless
there is an existing script (perhaps) quite why one would choose to do
half in Python and half in BASH (or...) is a question.

Because this is a Python forum, do the whole thing in one mode - our mode!

Previous suggestions involved identifying a line by its content.

Could use a neat state-transition solution.

However, there is no need to consider the input-data as lines because of
the concept of "white-space", well-utilised by some of Python's built-in
string-functions. See code-sample, below.

As mentioned before, the idea of splitting the one file (data-items
related by serial-progression) and creating two quite-separate
data-constructs (in this case: one holding the person's name in one file
and the other the person's email-address in another) which are related
'across', ie line-by-line, is an architectural error?horror. Such would
be hard to maintain, and over-time impossible to guarantee integrity.
Assuming this is not a one-off exercise, see elsewhere for advice to
store the captured data in some more-useful format, eg JSON, CSV, or
even put into a MongoDB or RDBMS.

****** code

""" PythonExperiments:rich.py
Demonstrate string extraction.
"""

__author__ = "dn, IT&T Consultant"
__python__ = "3.12"
__created__ = "PyCharm, 14 Jan 2024"
__copyright__ = "Copyright © 2024~"
__license__ = "GNU General Public License v3.0"

# PSL
import more_itertools as it

DATA_FILE = "rich_data_file"
READ_ONLY = "r"
AS_PAIRS = 2
STRICT_PAIRING = True

if __name__ == "__main__":
print("\nCommencing execution\n")

with open( DATA_FILE, READ_ONLY, ) as df:
data = df.read()

data_as_list = data.split()
paired_data = it.chunked( data_as_list, AS_PAIRS, STRICT_PAIRING, )

for name, email_address in paired_data:
# replace this with email-function
# and/or with storage-function
print( name, email_address, )

print("\nTerminating")

****** sample output

Calvin calvin@example.com
Hobbs hobbs@some.com
....

******

--
Regards,
=dn