import re

reEnt = re.compile(r"^.*&#(\d+);.*$");
mpch_entity = [0]

with open("cp437_html.txt") as fp:
   for line in fp.readlines():
       ent = reEnt.match(line).group(1)
       mpch_entity.append(int(ent))

print "mpch_entity = ", mpch_entity