I have some info back from a LAN switch as below Vlan 1 is administratively down, line protocol is down Vlan 2 is up, line protocol is up Helper address is 192.168.0.2 Vlan 3 is up, line protocol is up Helper address is not set Vlan 4 is up, line protocol is up Helper address is 192.168.0.2 Vlan 5 is down, line protocol is down Helper address is 192.168.0.2 Vlan 6 is down, line protocol is down Helper address is not set Helper address is not set And the output I'm trying for is Vlan 1,admin down,n/a Vlan 2,up/up, 192.168.0.2 Vlan 3, up/up, not set Vlan 4, up/up, 192.168.0.2 Vlan 5, down/down, 192.168.0.2 Vlan 6, down/down, not set So the helper isn't always there (line 1) sometimes it's set sometimes it isn't, sometimes there are two lines (last Vlan - I only need 1) and the Vlan can have states of admin down, up/up, up/down (not here) and down down. So using Python and pexpect I can get the above output, but I'm having difficulty parsing out the consecutive lines. I've tried enumerate and then use key+1 for the next line, but the fact that there can be 0,1 or 2 lines following the Vlan screws me. Any ideas please?