Error return "need more than 1 value to unpack"

Question

I am trying to take a text file with dates and reformat them. Ex: '1/31/2017' becomes '2017-1-31T:00:00:00Z'

Code:

with open("test.rtf") as f:
    data = f.readlines()

for line in data:
    a,b,c = line.split("/")

    if len(a) < 2:
        a = "0" + a

    if len(b) <2:
        b = "0" + b

    print(c,"-",a,"-",b,"T:00:00:Z")

However, it is returning an error: Traceback (most recent call last): File "pubdateformat.py", line 8, in a,b,c = line.split("/") ValueError: need more than 1 value to unpack

Can anyone explain what this is saying?

Thanks for the help!

Indeed line.split("/") looks to be returning a list with only 2 items. For what it's worth though, I'd recommending looking into the datetime library to do this for you rather than manually converting strings. In particular, look into strftime and strptime. — thesilkworm
Your data seems to contain lines with no "/" so split will return just the line. — pask

demo.b demo.b · Accepted Answer · 2018-03-09T11:27:06

You are reading a .rtf file as if it's .txt file. RTF is a text file format used by Microsoft products, such as Word and Office.

If you try the same example with a text file it should work fine. Either get a library to read .rtf file or use text file and same code should work.

In [17]: with open("test.txt") as f:
    ...:     data = f.readlines()
    ...:
    ...: for line in data:
    ...:     a,b,c = line.split("/")
    ...:
    ...:     if len(a) < 2:
    ...:         a = "0" + a
    ...:
    ...:     if len(b) <2:
    ...:         b = "0" + b
    ...:
    ...:     print(c,"-",a,"-",b,"T:00:00:Z")
    ...:

OUTPUT  ('2017', '-', '01', '-', '31', 'T:00:00:Z')

Error return "need more than 1 value to unpack"

2 Answers