from unipath import FSPath as Path DATA_DIR = Path(__file__).absolute().ancestor(1).child('data') sequences = {} with open(DATA_DIR.child('data.txt'), 'r') as f: data = f.read() sequence_data, composition_data = data.split('\n===\n') for sequence in sequence_data.split('#')[1:]: lines = sequence.split('\n') name, sequence_data = lines[0].strip(), filter(lambda x: x != '', lines[1:]).split() sequences[name] = sequence_data composition = composition_data.split('\n')[1:] print composition print sequences