file.readlines()
returns a list of all lines, you should use file.read()
:
Always use with
when handling files, it'll automatically close the file for you.
with open("decl.txt", "r") as f:
data = f.read()
# split oliver
words = re.split('\W+', data)
Help on file.read
:
>>> print file.read.__doc__
read([size]) -> read at most size bytes, returned as a string.
If the size argument is negative or omitted, read until EOF is reached.
Notice that when in non-blocking mode, less data than what was requested
may be returned, even if no size parameter was given.