python3 shutil error copying from config list - python-3.x

Question

Im trying to copy a file using shutil by reading in a config.dat file.
This file is simply:
/home/admin/Documents/file1
/home/admin/Documents/file2
Code does work but it will copy file1 okay but then misses file2 because it see a \n there, which im guessing is because of the new line.
#!/usr/bin/python3
import shutil
data = open("config.dat")
filelist = data.read()
src = filelist
dest = '/home/admin/Documents/backup/'
shutil.copy(src, dest)
Error code im getting :
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "./testing.py", line 18, in <module>
shutil.copy(src, dest)
File "/usr/lib/python3.4/shutil.py", line 229, in copy
copyfile(src, dst, follow_symlinks=follow_symlinks)
File "/usr/lib/python3.4/shutil.py", line 108, in copyfile
with open(src, 'rb') as fsrc:
FileNotFoundError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory:
'/home/admin/Documents/file1\n/home/admin/Documents/file2'
I would like the copy of those files to run based on the files from the config.dat folder but it detects a '\n'. Is there a way to fix this?
thanks for the help

Answer 1

Use split('\n') to get a list of files and the iterate that list. You probably want to throw in the file.strip() to get rid of trailing whitespace and empty lines.
import shutil
dest = '/home/admin/Documents/backup/'
with open('config.dat') as data:
filelist = data.read().split('\n')
for file in filelist:
if file:
shutil.copy(file.strip(), dest)
Or, if you don't need the filelist after this
with open('config.dat') as data:
for file in data:
if file:
shutil.copy(file.strip(), dest)