with open('puzzle.txt', 'r') as f: lines = f.read().splitlines() column_a = [] column_b = [] for line in lines: new_column_a, new_column_b = line.split(' ') column_a.append(new_column_a.strip()) column_b.append(new_column_b.strip()) similarity = 0 for i in range(len(column_a)): for x in range(len(column_b)): column_a_instances = 0 if column_a[i] == column_b[x]: column_a_instances += 1 similarity += column_a_instances * int(column_a[i]) print(similarity)