Python file parsing: Build tree from text file

Question

I have an indented text file that will be used to build a tree. Each line represents a node, and indents represent depth as well as node the current node is a child of.

Answer 1

If you don't insist on recursion, this works too:

from itertools import takewhile

is_tab = '\t'.__eq__

def build_tree(lines):
    lines = iter(lines)
    stack = []
    for line in lines:
        indent = len(list(takewhile(is_tab, line)))
        stack[indent:] = [line.lstrip()]
        print stack

source = '''ROOT
\tNode1
\t\tNode2
\t\t\tNode3
\t\t\t\tNode4
\tNode5
\tNode6'''

build_tree(source.split('\n'))

Result:

['ROOT']
['ROOT', 'Node1']
['ROOT', 'Node1', 'Node2']
['ROOT', 'Node1', 'Node2', 'Node3']
['ROOT', 'Node1', 'Node2', 'Node3', 'Node4']
['ROOT', 'Node5']
['ROOT', 'Node6']