python - So I have this text file that I am working with, and I want to use the info in it for my parking system

Question

A line from my text file:

RCF585 medium Joseph -you entered the parking lot at 3:30 and left at 4:30- 

What I want to do is identify the car by the license number, and then know that it is "medium" (the size of it) and therefore the total cost for it is (parking cost * 1.25 (tax)) meanwhile the total for small is (parking cost * 1.00) and big (parking cost * 1.50).

The parking cost (20 usd per half an hour) depends of course on how much time the car have been parked so my second problem is how to read and identify how much a car has parked by reading the line of the relevant car. Here is what I have succeeded to write till now:

f=open(file, "r")

which_car= input("Please write your license number: ")

for line in f:

if line.startswith(which_car):        #identifying which car we want to deal with

question from:https://stackoverflow.com/questions/65599624/so-i-have-this-text-file-that-i-am-working-with-and-i-want-to-use-the-info-in-i

Answer 1

I would use Regex to find the times in the text,

import re

regex = re.compile(r'(d{1,2}:dd)')
times = regex.findall(line)

and use datetime and dateutil.relativedelta to find the parking time,

from datetime import datetime
from dateutil.relativedelta import relativedelta

parking_time = relativedelta(datetime.strptime(times[0] , '%H:%M'), datetime.strptime(times[1] , '%H:%M'))
minutes = abs((parking_time.hours * 60) + parking_time.minutes)

So, all together would be:

import re
from datetime import datetime
from dateutil.relativedelta import relativedelta

which_car = input("Please write your license number: ")

with open(file, 'r') as f:
    
    for line in f:

        if line.startswith(which_car):

            size = line.split(' ')[1]

            regex = re.compile(r'(d{1,2}:dd)')
            times = regex.findall(line)
             
            # Update - Ex. 3:27 -> 3:30, 3:35 -> 3:30
            for i in range(len(times)):

                minute = int(times[i].split(':')[1])

                if minute - ((minute // 15) * 15) < 7.5:
                    minute = (minute // 15) * 15
                else:
                    minute = (minute // 15 + 1) * 15

                times[i] = times[i].split(':')[0] + ':' + str(minute)

            parking_time = relativedelta(datetime.strptime(times[0] , '%H:%M'), datetime.strptime(times[1] , '%H:%M'))

            minutes = abs((parking_time.hours * 60) + parking_time.minutes)

            parking_cost = (minutes // 30) * 20
            total_cost = parking_cost   # Default size is small

            if size == 'big':
                total_cost = parking_cost * 1.5
            elif size == 'medium':
                total_cost = parking_cost * 1.25

I suggest using with when working with files since you don't have to worry about closing the file manually anymore.