How to remove content from a text file? - python

We have a text file with specific strings in it. How would we remove the strings from the file and save it as a new file?
File content before script runs:
This has foo in it.
This could also have foo in it.
There is none in here.
Competently morph 24/365 markets foo rather than inexpensive customer service.
File content after script runs:
This has in it.
This could also have in it.
There is none in here.
Competently morph 24/365 markets rather than inexpensive customer service.
Here is what we tried, but cannot figure out how to remove just the string and leave the rest of the content.
def main():
// my target string to remove
mystring = 'foo'
// open the file
f = open("myfile.txt", "r")
// second file to output content to.
f2 = open("output.txt", "w+")
// read file line by line
flines = f.readLines()
//iterate through lines
for x in flines:
// stuck here.
// how to find mystring in the line
// after removing mystring from line, append to f2

How about using re.sub():
import re
def main():
mystring = 'foo'
f = open("myfile.txt", "r")
f2 = open("output.txt", "w+")
flines = f.readLines()
result = re.sub(r"\s?{}\s?".format(mystring), " ", flines)
f2.write(result)

Related

How to replace two different lines of text?

I need to create a file that changes the date and name of a .txt, but I can only change one or the other with this code I found on the internet, can anyone give me any tips?
Print
import os
from ast import Str
file = open("example.txt", "r")
replacement = ""
data = "02/07/2022"
name = "Alan"
for line in file:
line = line.strip()
changes = line.replace("__/__/____", data)
replacement = replacement + changes + "\n"
file.close()
fout = open("final.txt", "w")
fout.write(replacement)
fout.close()
You don't need to do this a line a time. You can replace that entire program with this:
data = "02/07/2022"
name = "Alan"
text = open("example.txt", "r").read().replace("__/__/____", data)
open("final.txt", "w").write(text)

Search for first occurrence of a string and insert string on line above with python

I usually work in bash so i'm very new to this frightening world of python.
I am attempting to search a file for a string then insert text above the "First occurrence" of that string with empty line between.
The file to be edited would look like this:
Name:
Billy
Thorton
Billy
Thorton
I am trying to insert "Bob" above "Thorton" with the empty lines between like this:
Name:
Billy
Bob
Thorton
Billy
Thorton
This is the Python i have so far.
contents = "Bob"
f = open("file", "w")
contents = "".join(contents)
f.write(contents)
f.close()
This does not search for the string and it replaces the whole file.
A working example in bash would be:
sed -i '0,/Thorton/s//Bob\n\n&/' file
A common way to do so in Python would be to open the file, iterate over it line by line and prepare the results, then write the results to the file.
res = ""
with open("test.txt", "r") as f:
data = f.readlines() # Read the file line by line
found = False
for line in data:
if "Thorton" in line and not found:
res += "Bob\n\n" # Insert Bob if needed
found = True
res += line # Insert the line we just read
with open("test.txt", "w") as f:
f.write(res) # Write the answer in the same file
You could use str.split() to get each item into a list then use list.index() to get the position of "Thorton" to insert from then str.join() to get them back into writable form:
with open('filename.txt', 'r') as infile:
data = infile.read().split()
data.insert(data.index('Thorton'), 'Bob')
with open('filename.txt', 'w') as outfile:
outfile.write('\n\n'.join(data))
you could do
searchedName = "Thorton"
addedName= "Bob"
f = open("file", "w")
content = f.readlines()
index = content.index(searchedName + '\n')
contents = content.insert(index , addedName + '\n')
contents = "".join(contents)
f.write(contents)
f.close()

Reading a textfile into a String

I'm just starting to learn python and have a textfile that looks like this:
Hello
World
Hello
World
And I want to add the numbers '55' to the beggining and end of every string that starts with 'hello'
The numbers '66' to the beggining and every of every string that starts with 'World'
etc
So my final file should look like this:
55Hello55
66World66
55Hello55
66World66
I'm reading the file in all at once, storing it in a string, and then trying to append accordingly
fp = open("test.txt","r")
strHolder = fp.read()
print(strHolder)
if 'Hello' in strHolder:
strHolder = '55' + strHolder + '55'
if 'World' in strHolder:
strHolder = '66' + strHolder + '66'
print(strHolder)
fp.close()
However, my string values '55' and '66' are always being added to the front of the file and end of the file, not the front of a certain string and to the end of the string, where I get this output of the string:
6655Hello
World
Hello
World
5566
Any help would be much appreciated.
You are reading the whole file at once with .read().
You can read it line by line in a for loop.
new_file = []
fp = open("test.txt", "r")
for line in fp:
line = line.rstrip("\n") # The string ends in a newline
# str.rstrip("\n") removes newlines at the end
if "Hello" in line:
line = "55" + line + "55"
if "World" in line:
line = "66" + line + "66"
new_file.append(line)
fp.close()
new_file = "\n".join(new_file)
print(new_file)
You could do it all at once, by reading the whole file and splitting by "\n" (newline)
new_file = []
fp = open("text.txt")
fp_read = fp.read()
fp.close()
for line in fp_read.split("\n"):
if "Hello" # ...
but this would load the whole file into memory at once, while the for loop only loads line by line (So this may not work for larger files).
The behaviour of this is that if the line has "Hello" in it, it will get "55" before and after it (even if the line is " sieohfoiHellosdf ") and the same for "World", and if it has both "Hello" and "World" (e.g. "Hello, World!" or "asdifhoasdfhHellosdjfhsodWorldosadh") it will get "6655" before and after it.
Just as a side note: You should use with to open a file as it makes sure that the file is closed later.
new_file = []
with open("test.txt") as fp: # "r" mode is default
for line in fp:
line = line.rstrip("\n")
if "Hello" in line:
line = "55" + line + "55"
if "World" in line:
line = "66" + line + "66"
new_file.append(line)
new_file = "\n".join(new_file)
print(new_file)
You need to iterate over each line of the file in order to get the desired result. In your code you are using .read(), instead use .readlines() to get list of all lines.
Below is the sample code:
lines = []
with open("test.txt", "r") as f:
for line in f.readlines(): # < Iterate over each line
if line.startswith("Hello"): # <-- check if line starts with "Hello"
line = "55{}55".format(line)
elif line.startswith("World"):
line = "66{}66".format(line)
lines.append(line)
print "\n".join(lines)
Why to use with? Check Python doc:
The ‘with‘ statement clarifies code that previously would use try...finally blocks to ensure that clean-up code is executed. In this section, I’ll discuss the statement as it will commonly be used. In the next section, I’ll examine the implementation details and show how to write objects for use with this statement.
The ‘with‘ statement is a control-flow structure whose basic structure is:
with expression [as variable]: with-block
The expression is evaluated, and it should result in an object that supports the context management protocol (that is, has enter() and exit() methods).
once you have read the file:
read_file = read_file.replace('hello','55hello55')
It'll replace all hellos with 55hello55
and use with open(text.txt, 'r' ) as file_hndler:
To read a text file, I recommend the following way which is compatible with Python 2 & 3:
import io
with io.open("test", mode="r", encoding="utf8") as fd:
...
Here, I make the assumption that your file use uft8 encoding.
Using a with statement make sure the file is closed at the end of reading even if a error occurs (an exception). To learn more about context manager, take a look at the Context Library.
There are several ways to read a text file:
read the whole file with: fd.read(), or
read line by line with a loop: for line in fd.
If you read the whole file, you'll need to split the lines (see str.splitlines. Here are the two solutions:
with io.open("test", mode="r", encoding="utf8") as fd:
content = fd.read()
for line in content.splilines():
if "Hello" in line:
print("55" + line + "55")
if "World" in line:
print("66" + line + "66")
Or
with io.open("test", mode="r", encoding="utf8") as fd:
for line in content.splilines():
line = line[:-1]
if "Hello" in line:
print("55" + line + "55")
if "World" in line:
print("66" + line + "66")
If you need to write the result in another file you can open the output file in write mode and use print(thing, file=out) as follow:
with io.open("test", mode="r", encoding="utf8") as fd:
with io.open("test", mode="w", encoding="utf8") as out:
for line in content.splilines():
line = line[:-1]
if "Hello" in line:
print("55" + line + "55", file=out)
if "World" in line:
print("66" + line + "66", file=out)
If you use Python 2, you'll need the following directive to use the print function:
from __future__ import print_function

Python script that will go through folders and replace content in them [duplicate]

Currently I'm using this:
f = open(filename, 'r+')
text = f.read()
text = re.sub('foobar', 'bar', text)
f.seek(0)
f.write(text)
f.close()
But the problem is that the old file is larger than the new file. So I end up with a new file that has a part of the old file on the end of it.
If you don't want to close and reopen the file, to avoid race conditions, you could truncate it:
f = open(filename, 'r+')
text = f.read()
text = re.sub('foobar', 'bar', text)
f.seek(0)
f.write(text)
f.truncate()
f.close()
The functionality will likely also be cleaner and safer using open as a context manager, which will close the file handler, even if an error occurs!
with open(filename, 'r+') as f:
text = f.read()
text = re.sub('foobar', 'bar', text)
f.seek(0)
f.write(text)
f.truncate()
The fileinput module has an inplace mode for writing changes to the file you are processing without using temporary files etc. The module nicely encapsulates the common operation of looping over the lines in a list of files, via an object which transparently keeps track of the file name, line number etc if you should want to inspect them inside the loop.
from fileinput import FileInput
for line in FileInput("file", inplace=1):
line = line.replace("foobar", "bar")
print(line)
Probably it would be easier and neater to close the file after text = re.sub('foobar', 'bar', text), re-open it for writing (thus clearing old contents), and write your updated text to it.
I find it easier to remember to just read it and then write it.
For example:
with open('file') as f:
data = f.read()
with open('file', 'w') as f:
f.write('hello')
To anyone who wants to read and overwrite by line, refer to this answer.
https://stackoverflow.com/a/71285415/11442980
filename = input("Enter filename: ")
with open(filename, 'r+') as file:
lines = file.readlines()
file.seek(0)
for line in lines:
value = int(line)
file.write(str(value + 1))
file.truncate()
Honestly you can take a look at this class that I built which does basic file operations. The write method overwrites and append keeps old data.
class IO:
def read(self, filename):
toRead = open(filename, "rb")
out = toRead.read()
toRead.close()
return out
def write(self, filename, data):
toWrite = open(filename, "wb")
out = toWrite.write(data)
toWrite.close()
def append(self, filename, data):
append = self.read(filename)
self.write(filename, append+data)
Try writing it in a new file..
f = open(filename, 'r+')
f2= open(filename2,'a+')
text = f.read()
text = re.sub('foobar', 'bar', text)
f.seek(0)
f.close()
f2.write(text)
fw.close()

How to Open a file through python

I am very new to programming and the python language.
I know how to open a file in python, but the question is how can I open the file as a parameter of a function?
example:
function(parameter)
Here is how I have written out the code:
def function(file):
with open('file.txt', 'r') as f:
contents = f.readlines()
lines = []
for line in f:
lines.append(line)
print(contents)
You can easily pass the file object.
with open('file.txt', 'r') as f: #open the file
contents = function(f) #put the lines to a variable.
and in your function, return the list of lines
def function(file):
lines = []
for line in f:
lines.append(line)
return lines
Another trick, python file objects actually have a method to read the lines of the file. Like this:
with open('file.txt', 'r') as f: #open the file
contents = f.readlines() #put the lines to a variable (list).
With the second method, readlines is like your function. You don't have to call it again.
Update
Here is how you should write your code:
First method:
def function(file):
lines = []
for line in f:
lines.append(line)
return lines
with open('file.txt', 'r') as f: #open the file
contents = function(f) #put the lines to a variable (list).
print(contents)
Second one:
with open('file.txt', 'r') as f: #open the file
contents = f.readlines() #put the lines to a variable (list).
print(contents)
Hope this helps!
Python allows to put multiple open() statements in a single with. You comma-separate them. Your code would then be:
def filter(txt, oldfile, newfile):
'''\
Read a list of names from a file line by line into an output file.
If a line begins with a particular name, insert a string of text
after the name before appending the line to the output file.
'''
with open(newfile, 'w') as outfile, open(oldfile, 'r', encoding='utf-8') as infile:
for line in infile:
if line.startswith(txt):
line = line[0:len(txt)] + ' - Truly a great person!\n'
outfile.write(line)
# input the name you want to check against
text = input('Please enter the name of a great person: ')
letsgo = filter(text,'Spanish', 'Spanish2')
And no, you don't gain anything by putting an explicit return at the end of your function. You can use return to exit early, but you had it at the end, and the function will exit without it. (Of course with functions that return a value, you use the return to specify the value to return.)
def fun(file):
contents = None
with open(file, 'r') as fp:
contents = fp.readlines()
## if you want to eliminate all blank lines uncomment the next line
#contents = [line for line in ''.join(contents).splitlines() if line]
return contents
print fun('test_file.txt')
or you can even modify this, such a way it takes file object as a function arguement as well
Here's a much simpler way of opening a file without defining your own function in Python 3.4:
var=open("A_blank_text_document_you_created","type_of_file")
var.write("what you want to write")
print (var.read()) #this outputs the file contents
var.close() #closing the file
Here are the types of files:
"r": just to read a file
"w": just to write a file
"r+": a special type which allows both reading and writing of the file
For more information see this cheatsheet.
def main():
file=open("chirag.txt","r")
for n in file:
print (n.strip("t"))
file.close()
if __name__== "__main__":
main()
the other method is
with open("chirag.txt","r") as f:
for n in f:
print(n)

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