python - How to get multiline input from user

52
votes

I want to write a program that gets multiple line input and work with it line by line. Why there is no function like raw_input in Python 3?

input does not allow user to put lines separated by newline (Enter), it prints back only the first line.

Can it be stored in variable or even read it to a list?

5
pythoninputmultiline
because there is input() in Python3.x for taking input from the user. - ZdaR
but it does not allow to put multiple lines - MaciejPL
How were you getting "multiple line input" with raw_input? Why not get one line at a time, looping until the user enters a blank line? - jonrsharpe
but I want to input all lines at once - MaciejPL
That doesn't answer my first question, and only partly the second. - jonrsharpe

5 Answers

67
votes

In Python 3.x the raw_input() of Python 2.x has been replaced by input() function. However in both the cases you cannot input multi-line strings, for that purpose you would need to get input from the user line by line and then .join() them using \n, or you can also take various lines and concatenate them using + operator separated by \n

To get multi-line input from the user you can go like:

no_of_lines = 5
lines = ""
for i in xrange(no_of_lines):
    lines+=input()+"\n"

print(lines)

Or

lines = []
while True:
    line = input()
    if line:
        lines.append(line)
    else:
        break
text = '\n'.join(lines)
65
votes

raw_input can correctly handle the EOF, so we can write a loop, read till we have received an EOF (Ctrl-D) from user:

Python 3

print("Enter/Paste your content. Ctrl-D or Ctrl-Z ( windows ) to save it.")
contents = []
while True:
    try:
        line = input()
    except EOFError:
        break
    contents.append(line)

Python 2

print "Enter/Paste your content. Ctrl-D or Ctrl-Z ( windows ) to save it."
contents = []
while True:
    try:
        line = raw_input("")
    except EOFError:
        break
    contents.append(line)
10
votes

input(prompt) is basically equivalent to

def input(prompt):
    print(prompt, end='', file=sys.stderr)
    return sys.stdin.readline()

You can read directly from sys.stdin if you like. 

lines = sys.stdin.readlines()

lines = [line for line in sys.stdin]

five_lines = list(itertools.islice(sys.stdin, 5))

The first two require that the input end somehow, either by reaching the end of a file or by the user typing Control-D (or Control-Z in Windows) to signal the end. The last one will return after five lines have been read, whether from a file or from the terminal/keyboard.

1
votes

Use the input() built-in function to get a input line from the user.

You can read the help here.

You can use the following code to get several line at once (finishing by an empty one):

while input() != '':
    do_thing
-1
votes
no_of_lines = 5
lines = ""
for i in xrange(5):
    lines+=input()+"\n"
    a=raw_input("if u want to continue (Y/n)")
    ""
    if(a=='y'):
        continue
    else:
        break
    print lines