Question

In Python

The file Senate113_sorted.txt contains a list of the 100 US Senators that made up the 113th Senate, sorted in alphabetical order by Senator last name. Write a function named different_party that accepts one argument, a file name, and returns a list of US states whose Senators come from 2 different political parties (as indicated by D, R, or I).

Here's a few rows from the file

Lamar Alexander,Tennessee,R
Kelly Ayotte,New Hampshire,R
Tammy Baldwin,Wisconsin,D
John Barrasso,Wyoming,R
Max Baucus,Montana,D
Mark Begich,Alaska,D
Michael Bennet,Colorado,D
Richard Blumenthal,Connecticut,D
Roy Blunt,Missouri,R
John Boozman,Arkansas,R
Barbara Boxer,California,D
Sherrod Brown,Ohio,D
Richard Burr,North Carolina,R
Maria Cantwell,Washington,D
Benjamin Cardin,Maryland,D
Thomas Carper,Delaware,D
Robert Casey,Pennsylvania,D
Saxby Chambliss,Georgia,R
Dan Coats,Indiana,R
Tom Coburn,Oklahoma,R

In [1]: different_party('Senate113_sorted.txt') out[1]: [ 'New Hampshire', Wisconsin', Alaska', Missouri, Arkansas , Ohio' North Carolina', Pennsylvania', Indiana, Maine Illinois', Iowa North Dakota', Nevada', South Dakota', Louisiana', Vermont' Florida

Answer 1

I updated the code -

import os
def different_party(filename):
    # checks for file existence
    if os.path.isfile(filename):
        # will store the states for party equal Democratic or Republic
        states={}
        with open(filename,'r') as infile:
            for line in infile.readlines():
                line = line.strip().split(',')
                state=line[1]
                party=line[2]
                if party not in ['D','R']:continue
                if states.get(state)==None:
                    states[state]=[party]
                else:
                    parties=states.get(state)
                    if party not in parties:parties.append(party)
            print(states)
           return [party for party in states.keys() if len(states.get(party))>1]
    else:
        # if file dont exist, print message and return None
        print('{} does not exists'.format(filename))
        return None

print(different_party('Senate113_sorted.txt'))