with open('database/background/citySet.txt','r') as f: city_set = f.read().strip().split('\n') with open('database/background/citySet_with_states.txt','r') as f: lines = f.read().strip().split('\n') data = [] for unit in lines: if unit.split('\t')[0] in city_set: data.append(unit) with open('database/background/citySet_with_states.txt','w') as f: for unit in data: f.write(unit + '\n') f.close()