code: def _read_file(self):
          
          self.raw = []
          with open(self.fname, 'r') as f:
              for line in f:
                  #print(line)
                  if line.startswith('#'):    
                      pass # comment
                  elif line.strip('\n') == '':
                      pass # space
                  else:
                      self.raw.append(line.strip('\n'))
docs: reads the file and cleans into standard text ready for parsing