5.8. Append Reverse

For this question, you will be given an input file. The file will consist of names and surnames of some people, with a space character between a name and a surname. On each line, only 1 person’s name and surname will be given. You should read the names and surnames from the file and add them again at the bottom of the file in the reversed order, i.e., “surname name”. Write a function named append_reverse which takes an input string for the file name and returns a list of tuples where each tuple consists of the name, surname pair you read from the file.

The file will be ending with a newline character (*:raw-latex:n*), so you don’t need to bother with that. This also lets you run your code multiple times to double the person records in the file decently.

Hint: Check out the string method split().

Sample I/O:

Sample function call:
    append_reverse("input.txt")

Content of the file "input.txt" before the function call:
    Lewis Hamilton
    Nicholas Latifi
    Charles Leclerc
    Esteban Ocon
    Kimi Raikkonen

Return value:
    [('Lewis', 'Hamilton'), ('Nicholas', 'Latifi'), ('Charles', 'Leclerc'), ('Esteban', 'Ocon'), ('Kimi', 'Raikkonen')]

Content of the file "input.txt" after the function call:
    Lewis Hamilton
    Nicholas Latifi
    Charles Leclerc
    Esteban Ocon
    Kimi Raikkonen
    Hamilton Lewis
    Latifi Nicholas
    Leclerc Charles
    Ocon Esteban
    Raikkonen Kimi

Show the Answer

def append_reverse(input_file_name):
    person_list = []
    input_file = open(input_file_name, "r")
    for line in input_file:
        name, surname = line.split()
        # Save as a tuple
        person_list.append((name, surname))

    input_file.close()
    # Re-open in append mode
    input_file = open(input_file_name, "a")
    for person in person_list:
        # first is name, second is surname
        string_to_write = person[1] + " " + person[0] + "\n"
        input_file.write(string_to_write)

    input_file.close()
    return person_list