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 split_func(a):
    import json
    import re
    a = json.loads(a.strip())
    purchases = {}
    for i, line in enumerate(a):  
        line = re.split(r",|:", str(line))
        keys = line[1]
        values = line[3]
        purchases[keys] = values 
    return purchases

split_func(a)