How to read a text file into a string variable and strip newlines?

Question

I use the following code segment to read a file in python:

with open ("data.txt", "r") as myfile:     data=myfile.readlines() 

Input file is:

LLKKKKKKKKMMMMMMMMNNNNNNNNNNNNN GGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHEEEEEEEE 

and when I print data I get

['LLKKKKKKKKMMMMMMMMNNNNNNNNNNNNN\n', 'GGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHEEEEEEEE'] 

As I see data is in list form. How do I make it string? And also how do I remove the "\n", "[", and "]" characters from it?

Answer 1

You could use:

with open('data.txt', 'r') as file:     data = file.read().replace('\n', '') 

Or if the file content is guaranteed to be one-line

with open('data.txt', 'r') as file:     data = file.read().rstrip() 

Answer 2

In Python 3.5 or later, using pathlib you can copy text file contents into a variable and close the file in one line:

from pathlib import Path txt = Path('data.txt').read_text() 

and then you can use str.replace to remove the newlines:

txt = txt.replace('\n', '')