pyparsing pproblems

[standenman]

I am trying to parse the bookmarks from a document x.pdf

>>> import pyparsing as pp
>>> import PyPDF2
>>> from PyPDF2 import PdfFileReader
>>> pdfFileObj=open('x.pdf','rb')
>>> PdfReader=PyPDF2.PdfFileReader(pdfFileObj)
>>> pdfNestedExp=PdfReader.getOutlines()
>>> print(pp.nestedExpr(opener='{', closer='}').parseString(pdfNestedExp))

This code results int he following error:

Error:
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<pyshell#57>", line 1, in <module>
    print(pp.nestedExpr(opener='{', closer='}').parseString(pdfNestedExp))
  File "C:\Python34\lib\site-packages\pyparsing.py", line 1620, in parseString
    instring = instring.expandtabs()
AttributeError: 'list' object has no attribute 'expandtabs'

What am I doing wrong?

[standenman]

I am trying to parse a Python nested list that is the result of the getOutlines() function of module PyPFD2 using pyparsing module. This is the result I get. what in the world are 'expandtabs' and why is that making a difference to my parse attempt?

import PPDF2,pyparsing
from pyparsing import Word, alphas, nums
pdfFileObj=open('x.pdf','rb')
pdfReader=PyPDF2.PdfFileReader(pdfFileObj)
List=pdfReader.getOutlines()
myparser = Word( alphas ) + Word(nums, exact=2) +"of" + Word(nums, exact=2)
myparser.parseString(List)

Error:
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<pyshell#23>", line 1, in <module>
    myparser.parseString(List)
  File "C:\python\lib\site-packages\pyparsing.py", line 1620, in parseString
    instring = instring.expandtabs()
AttributeError: 'list' object has no attribute 'expandtabs'

[Gribouillis]

what in the world are 'expandtabs' and why is that making a difference to my parse attempt?

str.expandtabs() is a builtin method in class str. Obviously you are calling a method (parseString()) that expects a string argument with a list argument and this is the cause for the error.