Replace re.split with regular split to get the same result (you can use the json library and the loads function) The code: f = open('purchase_log.txt', encoding='utf-8') import re purchases = {} for i, line in enumerate(f): line = re.split(r",|:", line.strip()) keys = line[1] values = line[3] purchases[keys] = values

def load_json(line):
    import json
    from json.decoder import JSONDecodeError
    
    try:
        line = json.loads(line)
    except JSONDecodeError:
        line = {}
    return line
    
    
f = open('purchase_log.txt', encoding='utf-8')
purchases = {}
for i, line in enumerate(f):  
    line = line.strip().split(',')
    keys = line[1]
    values = line[3]
    purchases[keys] = values