import os presets_filename = os.path.abspath(os.path.join( os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(__file__)), 'presets.tsv')) with open(presets_filename) as f: r = f.read() print r lines = r.split('\n') keys = lines[0].split('\t')[1:] preset = 'medium' col = None for i, key in enumerate(keys): if key == preset: col = i break if col is None: raise Exception('Preset %s data set not found, options are %s' % (preset, keys)) options = {} for line in lines[1:]: cols = line.split('\t') options[cols[0]] = cols[i+1] print ' options ' print options