Also, you open the file and read the entire file for each ID entered. This is time consuming (in computer time) and so you should consider reading the file once and placing the records in a dictionary, indexed on ID, and using the dictionary to look up the info as it is entered.

Here's an example of reading the file into a dictionary:

python Syntax (Toggle Plain Text)

def load_IDs():
    infile=open("tab.txt","r")
    lines=infile.readlines()
    infile.close()
    my_IDs = {}
    for line in lines:
        data=line.strip().split(",")
        my_IDs[ data[ 0 ] ] = data[ 1 ]
    return my_IDs

def load_IDs(): infile=open("tab.txt","r") lines=infile.readlines() infile.close() my_IDs = {} for line in lines: data=line.strip().split(",") my_IDs[ data[ 0 ] ] = data[ 1 ] return my_IDs

You're reading the contents of the file into a dictionary, not a list.

What do you mean work directly from the file?