get_list_of_university_towns.py

def get_list_of_university_towns():
    
    # Open and read files -->
    file = open('university_towns.txt',"r")
    lines = file.readlines()
    file.close()
    
    #remove empty lines -->
    new_lines = []
    for line in lines:
        if not re.match(r'^\s$',line):
            new_lines.append(line)
            
    lines = new_lines.copy()
    
    #Strip white space at beginning and end of each line -->
    for index, line in enumerate(lines):
        lines[index] = line.strip()
    
    #Loop through lines to form a dataframe -->
    data = pd.DataFrame(columns=('State','RegionName'))
    i = 0
    state_string = ""
    region_string = ""
    for line in lines:
        if '[edit]' in line:
            state_string = line.replace('[edit]',"")  
        else:
            region_string = re.sub(r' \(.*',"", line) # if it begins with (, \( extract inside replace with ""
            data.loc[i] = [state_string,region_string]
            i+=1
    return data

    

get_list_of_university_towns()