text-parser

Guide for parsing structured text input files.

Text Parser Skill

Overview

Parse structured text files to extract data for filling PDFs.

Key-Value Parsing

python

def parse_input(text):
    """Parse key-value pairs from text."""
    data = {}
    for line in text.strip().split('\n'):
        if ':' in line:
            # Remove leading dash/bullet if present
            line = line.lstrip('- ').strip()
            key, value = line.split(':', 1)
            data[key.strip()] = value.strip()
    return data

# Usage
with open("input.txt") as f:
    content = f.read()

data = parse_input(content)
# data["Name"] -> "John Smith"
# data["Email"] -> "[e-mail]"

Common Input Formats

text

- Name: John Smith
- Email: [e-mail]
- Phone: [phone]

Or without dashes:

text

Name: John Smith
Email: [e-mail]

Tips

• Read the entire input file first
• Match field names to PDF labels
• Handle special instructions