How to extract data from a list with addtional spaces in between them in python

Question

The code is trying to extract from a file: (format: group, team, val1, val2). However, some results are correct if there is no additional space and produces wrong result in lines with additional spaces in between.

data = {}
with open('source.txt') as f:
    for line in f:
        print ("this is the line data: ", line)
        
        needed = line.split()[0:2]
        print ("this is what i need: ", needed)

source.txt #-- format: group, team, val1, val2

alpha diehard group 1 54,00.01
bravo nevermindteam 3 500,000.00
charlie team ultimatum 1 27,722.29 ($250.45)
charlie team ultimatum 10 252,336,733.383 ($492.06)
delta beyond-imagination 2 11 ($10)
echo double doubt 5 143,299.00 ($101)
echo double doubt 8 145,300 ($125.01)
falcon revengers 3 0.1234
falcon revengers 5 9.19
lima almost done 6 45.00181 ($38.9)
romeo ontheway home 12 980

I am trying to just extract the values before val1. #-- group, team

alpha diehard group
bravo nevermindteam
charlie team ultimatum
delta beyond-imagination
echo double doubt
falcon revengers
lima almost done
romeo ontheway home

Answer 1

Use regex.

import regex as re
with open('source.txt') as f:
   for line in f:
       found = re.search("(.*?)\d", line)
       needed = found.group(1).split()[0:3]
       print(needed)

Output:

['alpha', 'diehard', 'group']
['bravo', 'nevermindteam']
['charlie', 'team', 'ultimatum']
['charlie', 'team', 'ultimatum']
['delta', 'beyond-imagination']
['echo', 'double', 'doubt']
['echo', 'double', 'doubt']
['falcon', 'revengers']
['falcon', 'revengers']
['lima', 'almost', 'done']
['romeo', 'ontheway', 'home']