How to Find the Shortest Words in a Text File using Python?

In this article, we will show you how to find and print all the shortest words from a given text file using Python. The shortest words are those having the same length as the minimum length word in the file.

We'll work with a sample text file containing various words of different lengths and extract all words that match the shortest length.

Sample Text File

Let's assume we have a text file called TextFile.txt with the following content ?

Good Morning Tutorials Point
This is the Tutorials Point sample File
Consisting of Specific
abbreviated
source codes in Python Seaborn Scala
Imagination
Summary and Explanation
Welcome user
Learn with joy

Algorithm

Following are the steps to find the shortest words ?

• Open the text file in read-only mode using the open() function

• Read the file content and split it into a list of words using split()

• Find the length of the shortest word using min() with key=len

• Use list comprehension to collect all words matching the shortest length

• Display the results

Example

The following program finds and prints all the shortest words from a text file ?

# Create sample text file content for demonstration
sample_text = """Good Morning Tutorials Point
This is the Tutorials Point sample File
Consisting of Specific
abbreviated
source codes in Python Seaborn Scala
Imagination
Summary and Explanation
Welcome user
Learn with joy"""

# Write sample content to a file
with open("sample_file.txt", 'w') as f:
    f.write(sample_text)

# Read the file and find shortest words
with open("sample_file.txt", 'r') as filedata:
    # Getting the list of words from the file 
    words_list = filedata.read().split()

# Finding the length of the shortest word
shortest_word_length = len(min(words_list, key=len))

# Getting all words with the minimum length using list comprehension
shortest_words = [word for word in words_list if len(word) == shortest_word_length]

# Print the results
print("Length of shortest word:", shortest_word_length)
print("The shortest words from the text file:")
print(shortest_words)

Length of shortest word: 2
The shortest words from the text file:
['is', 'of', 'in']

How It Works

The program works by ?

• Reading the file: We use open() with read mode and read().split() to get all words

• Finding minimum length: min(words_list, key=len) returns the shortest word, and len() gives its length

• Filtering words: List comprehension checks each word's length against the minimum length

• Collecting results: All words matching the shortest length are stored in a list

Alternative Approach

You can also use a traditional loop instead of list comprehension ?

# Alternative method using a regular loop
sample_text = "Good Morning Tutorials Point This is the sample"

words_list = sample_text.split()
shortest_length = len(min(words_list, key=len))

shortest_words = []
for word in words_list:
    if len(word) == shortest_length:
        shortest_words.append(word)

print("Shortest words:", shortest_words)
print("Length:", shortest_length)

Shortest words: ['is']
Length: 2

Key Points

• The key=len parameter in min() tells Python to compare words by their length

• List comprehension provides a concise way to filter elements based on conditions

• The split() method without arguments splits on any whitespace (spaces, tabs, newlines)

• Using with open() ensures the file is properly closed after reading

Conclusion

This approach efficiently finds all shortest words by first determining the minimum length, then filtering the word list. The combination of min() with key=len and list comprehension makes the solution both readable and performant.