Looping over a text file list with python

Question

EDIT: Have updated post for better clarity, no answers have yet to help!

Alright, so my assignment is to take a text file, that would have 4 entries per line, those bein

Answer 1

Well, I think, you probably want data2 = [word.rstrip("\n") for word in tmp], but without seeing sample input and desired output it's hard to tell.

Also,

first[2]=(int(first[2]))
first[3]=(int(first[3]))
initialHours = first[2]
payRate = first[3]

Could be:

initialHours = int(first[2])
payRate = int(first[3])

But you'd also need to change other references to first[2]

Finally, I'd change

if os.path.isfile(fileQuestion) == True:
file = open('emps', 'r')
data = file.readlines()
for tmp in data:

to:

if os.path.isfile(fileQuestion) == True:
with open('emps', 'r') as myfile:
    for tmp in myfile:

This ensures that the file gets closed properly (your code doesn't close it), and iterates directly through the file, rather than using readlines() which needlessly reads the entire file to memory before doing enything else. Note that file is a python builtin, so a bad choice of variable name.