How to Print n Unique Numbers from a Text File in Python

Learn how to efficiently print unique integers from a text file using Python, without repetitions. Ideal for anyone looking to easily handle data processing in files.
---
This video is based on the question https://stackoverflow.com/q/74349844/ asked by the user 'helperman200' ( https://stackoverflow.com/u/17321772/ ) and on the answer https://stackoverflow.com/a/74350064/ provided by the user 'Alberto Garcia' ( https://stackoverflow.com/u/15647384/ ) at 'Stack Overflow' website. Thanks to these great users and Stackexchange community for their contributions.

Visit these links for original content and any more details, such as alternate solutions, latest updates/developments on topic, comments, revision history etc. For example, the original title of the Question was: How to print n numbers from text file containg n numbers without repeating them?

Also, Content (except music) licensed under CC BY-SA https://meta.stackexchange.com/help/l...
The original Question post is licensed under the 'CC BY-SA 4.0' ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... ) license, and the original Answer post is licensed under the 'CC BY-SA 4.0' ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... ) license.

If anything seems off to you, please feel free to write me at vlogize [AT] gmail [DOT] com.
---
How to Print n Unique Numbers from a Text File in Python

When working with data stored in text files, it's not uncommon to encounter the challenge of retrieving unique values from a set of numbers, especially when they're repeated. If you've found yourself in such a situation, don’t worry! In this guide, we'll explore how to read numbers from a text file and display each unique integer without any repetitions, using Python programming.

The Problem

Imagine you have a text file, numbers.txt, containing a list of integers. Here’s a sample of what the content might look like:

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

Your goal is to read these numbers from the file and print each integer exactly once. The desired output should look like this:

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

This can be particularly useful when dealing with large datasets, as duplications can skew results in data operations.

The Solution

Step-by-Step Guide

Let’s break down the solution. We'll use Python's built-in functionalities to achieve this with minimal lines of code. Here’s how you can do it:

Open the File: We first need to open the file that contains our numbers.

Read the Numbers: We will read all the lines from the file.

Remove Duplicates: By using a set, we can easily remove any duplicate numbers since a set automatically enforces uniqueness.

Print the Unique Numbers: Finally, we will print each unique number.

The Code

Here is the complete code that accomplishes these steps:

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

Code Explanation

Opening the File: with open('numbers.txt') as f: safely opens the file and ensures that it will be properly closed afterward.

Reading Lines: f.readlines() reads all lines from the file and puts them into a list.

Creating a Set: set(f.readlines()) converts the list of numbers into a set, automatically removing duplicates.

Printing Each Number: We loop through the set and use print(int(number)) to convert each line (which is a string) back into an integer and print it.

Additional Notes

File Path: Make sure the path to your text file is correct. If it's not in the same directory as your script, you will need to specify the full path.

Integer Conversion: Since lines read from a file are strings, we convert each string back to an integer before printing.

Conclusion

With just a few lines of code, you can efficiently read integers from a text file and print each unique value without repetitions. This method is not only straightforward but also flexible enough to handle different datasets.

By utilizing sets in Python, you can streamline your data processing tasks and avoid the pitfalls of repeated information. Whether you're dealing with user input, database records, or file data, this technique can be a vital part of your programming toolkit.

Now you're ready to handle unique numbers from text files with ease!