[FIXED] How to save multiple lines of a txt file as one string, starting and stopping at certain keywords

Issue

I have a stored procedure stored as a .txt file. I am trying to store all of the "joins" to a file. I know how to isolate some of the joins by breaking the txt file into lines and reading them:

mylist[]
for line in lines:
     if line.startswith('inner'):
          mylist.append({'join': line})
      

However, the issue comes in where some of the joins are not on one line. For example:

inner join tablea a
  on tableb.id = a.id

inner join tablec c
  on tabled.id = c.id

left outer join tabled d
  on tablee.id = d.id

Is it possible to join multiple lines (all lines after the first keyword 'inner' and before the next keyword 'inner') to one string? Making something that looks like this:

inner join tablea a on tableb.id = a.id
inner join tablec c on tabled.id = c.id
left outer join tabled d on tablee.id = d.id
etc

My, admittedly novice, thinking on this would be to search the txt file for lines that begin with keywords like 'on' and then append that line to the line above it. From there, I can just extract all lines that start with either 'inner' or left'.

Solution

This works:

a = open("./textFile")

lines = a.readlines()

L = []
for i in range(len(lines)):
     if lines[i].startswith('inner'):
          temp = i + 1
          toAdd = lines[i]
          while not lines[temp].startswith("inner") and temp < len(lines)-1:
               toAdd += lines[temp]

               temp+=1

          toAdd = toAdd.replace("\n", "")
          L.append({'join': toAdd})

print(L)

Answered By - Braden Yonano

Answer Checked By - Mary Flores (PHPFixing Volunteer)