removing \n in dictionary

Question

I've got a problem with removing \n in my program here is the code

with open(filename) as f:
    for line in f.readlines():
        parent, child = line.split(",")
            parent.strip()
            child.strip()
            children[child].append(parent)

tried using .rstrip and other variants but it does nothing for my, this is the result i get

{'Patricia\n': ['Mary'], 'Lisa\n': ['Mary']} 

the problem is when i call children["Patricia"] i get [], because it recognizes only children["Patricia\n"]

Answer 1

Actually, you were quite close. Strings are immutable and hence calling strip() will return a new string while leaving the original one intact.

So replacing

parent.strip()
child.strip()

with

parent = parent.strip()
child = child.strip()

would do the trick.

Answer 2

Please use strip before split:

parent, child = line.rstrip("\n").split(",")

Issue was: parent.strip() needs to be re-assigned to a string as strings are immutable.