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Returning every instance of whatever's between two strings in a file [Python 3]

What I'm trying to do is open a file, then find every instance of '[\x06I"' and '\x06;', then return whatever is between the two.
Since this is not a standard text file (it's map data from RPG maker) readline() will not work for my purposes, as the file is not at all formatted in such a way that the data I want is always neatly within one line by itself.
What I'm doing right now is loading the file into a list with read(), then simply deleting characters from the very beginning until I hit the string '[\x06I'. Then I scan ahead to find '\x06;', store what's between them as a string, append said string to a list, then resume at the character after the semicolon I found.
It works, and I ended up with pretty much exactly what I wanted, but I feel like that's the worst possible way to go about it. Is there a more efficient way?
My relevant code:
while eofget == 0:
savor = 0
while savor == 0 or eofget == 0:
if line[0:4] == '[\x06I"':
x = 4
spork = 0
while spork == 0:
x += 1
if line[x] == '\x06':
if line[x+1] == ';':
spork = x
savor = line[5:spork] + "\n"
line = line[x+1:]
linefinal[lineinc] = savor
lineinc += 1
elif line[x:x+7] == '#widthi':
print("eof reached")
spork = 1
eofget = 1
savor = 0
elif line[x:x+7] == '#widthi':
print("finished map " + mapname)
eofget = 1
savor = 0
break
else:
line = line[1:]
You can just ignore the variable names. I just name things the first thing that comes to mind when I'm doing one-offs like this. And yes, I am aware a few things in there don't make any sense, but I'm saving cleanup for when I finalize the code.
When eofget gets flipped on this subroutine terminates and the next map is loaded. Then it repeats. The '#widthi' check is basically there to save time, since it's present in every map and indicates the beginning of the map data, AKA data I don't care about.

I feel this is a natural case to use regular expressions. Using the findall method:
>>> s = 'testing[\x06I"text in between 1\x06;filler text[\x06I"text in between 2\x06;more filler[\x06I"text in between \n with some line breaks \n included in the text\x06;ending'
>>> import re
>>> p = re.compile('\[\x06I"(.+?)\x06;', re.DOTALL)
>>> print(p.findall(s))
['text in between 1', 'text in between 2', 'text in between \n with some line breaks \n included in the text']
The regex string '\[\x06I"(.+?)\x06;'can be interpreted as follows:
Match as little as possible (denoted by ?) of an undetermined number of unspecified characters (denoted by .+) surrounded by '[\x06I"' and '\x06;', and only return the enclosed text (denoted by the parentheses around .+?)
Adding re.DOTALL in the compile makes the .? match line breaks as well, allowing multi-line text to be captured.

I would use split():
fulltext = 'adsfasgaseg[\x06I"thisiswhatyouneed\x06;sdfaesgaegegaadsf[\x06I"this is the second what you need \x06;asdfeagaeef'
parts = fulltext.split('[\x06I"') # split by first label
results = []
for part in parts:
if '\x06;' in part: # if second label exists in part
results.append(part.split('\x06;')[0]) # get the part until the second label
print results

Parsing a text file for pattern and writing found pattern back to another file python 3.4

I am trying to open a text file. Parse the text file for specific regex patterns then when if I find that pattern I write the regex returned pattern to another text file.
Specifically a list of IP Addresses which I want to parse specific ones out of.
So the file may have
10.10.10.10
9.9.9.9
5.5.5.5
6.10.10.10
And say I want just the IPs that end in 10 (the regex I think I am good with) My example looks for the 10.180.42, o4 41.XX IP hosts. But I will adjust as needed.
I've tried several method and fail miserably at them all. It's days like this I know why I just never mastered any language. But I'm committed to Python so here goes.
import re
textfile = open("SymantecServers.txt", 'r')
matches = re.findall('^10.180\.4[3,1].\d\d',str(textfile))
print(matches)
This gives me empty backets. I had to encase the textfile in the str function or it just puked. I don't know if this is right.
This just failed all over the place no matter how I fine tuned it.
f = open("SymantecServers.txt","r")
o = open("JustIP.txt",'w', newline="\r\n")
for line in f:
pattern = re.compile("^10.180\.4[3,1].\d\d")
print(pattern)
#o.write(pattern)
#o.close()
f.close()
I did get one working but it just returned the entire line (including netmask and other test like hostname which are all on the same line in the text file. I just want IP)
Any help on how to read a text file and if it has a pattern of IP grab the full IP and write that into another text file so I end up with a text file with a list of just the IPs I want. I am 3 hours into it and behind on work so going to do the first file by hand...
I am just at a loss what I am missing. Sorry for being a newbie

here is it working:
>>> s = """10.10.10.10
... 9.9.9.9
... 5.5.5.5
... 10.180.43.99
... 6.10.10.10"""
>>> re.findall(r'10\.180\.4[31]\.\d\d', s)
['10.180.43.99']
you do not really need to add line boundaries, as you're matching a very specific IP address, if your file does not have weird things like '123.23.234.10.180.43.99.21354' that you don't want to match, it should be ok!
your syntax of [3,1] is matching either 3, 1 or , and you don't want to match against a comma ;-)
about your function:
r = re.compile(r'10\.180\.4[31]\.\d\d')
with open("SymantecServers.txt","r") as f:
with open("JustIP.txt",'w', newline="\r\n") as o:
for line in f:
matches = r.findall(line)
for match in matches:
o.write(match)
though if I were you, I'd extract IPs using:
r = re.compile(r'\d{1,3}\.\d{1,3}\.\d{1,3}\.\d{1,3}')
with open("SymantecServers.txt","r") as f:
with open("JustIP.txt",'w', newline="\r\n") as o:
for line in f:
matches = r.findall(line)
for match in matches:
a, b, c, d = match.split('.')
if int(a) < 255 and int(b) < 255 and int(c) in (43, 41) and int(d) < 100:
o.write(match)
or another way to do it:
r = re.compile(r'(\d{1,3})\.(\d{1,3})\.(\d{1,3})\.(\d{1,3})')
with open("SymantecServers.txt","r") as f:
with open("JustIP.txt",'w', newline="\r\n") as o:
for line in f:
m = r.match(line)
if m:
a, b, c, d = m.groups()
if int(a) < 255 and int(b) < 255 and int(c) in (43, 41) and int(d) < 100:
o.write(match)
which uses the regex to split the IP address into groups.

What you're missing is that you're doing a re.compile() which creates a Regular Expression object in Python. You're forgetting to match.
You could try:
# This isn't the best way to match IP's, but if it fits for your use-case keep it for now.
pattern = re.compile("^10.180\.4[13].\d\d")
f = open("SymantecServers.txt",'r')
o = open("JustIP.txt",'w')
for line in f:
m = pattern.match(line)
if m is not None:
print "Match: %s" %(m.group(0))
o.write(m.group(0) + "\n")
f.close()
o.close()
Which is compiling the Python object, attempting to match the line against the compiled object, and then printing out that current match. I can avoid having to split my matches, but I have to pay attention to matching groups - therefore group(0)
You can also look at re.search() which you can do, but if you're running search enough times with the same regular expression, it becomes more worthwhile to use compile.
Also note that I moved the f.close() to the outside of the for loop.

difflib python formatting

I am using this code to find difference between two csv list and hove some formatting questions. This is probably an easy fix, but I am new and trying to learn and having alot of problems.
import difflib
diff=difflib.ndiff(open('test1.csv',"rb").readlines(), open('test2.csv',"rb").readlines())
try:
while 1:
print diff.next(),
except:
pass
the code works fine and I get the output I am looking for as:
Group,Symbol,Total
- Adam,apple,3850
? ^
+ Adam,apple,2850
? ^
bob,orange,-45
bob,lemon,66
bob,appl,-56
bob,,88
My question is how do I clean the formatting up, can I make the Group,Symbol,Total into sperate columns, and the line up the text below?
Also can i change the ? to represent a text I determine? such as test 1 and test 2 representing which sheet it comes from?
thanks for any help

Using difflib.unified_diff gives much cleaner output, see below.
Also, both difflib.ndiff and difflib.unified_diff return a Differ object that is a generator object, which you can directly use in a for loop, and that knows when to quit, so you don't have to handle exceptions yourself. N.B; The comma after line is to prevent print from adding another newline.
import difflib
s1 = ['Adam,apple,3850\n', 'bob,orange,-45\n', 'bob,lemon,66\n',
'bob,appl,-56\n', 'bob,,88\n']
s2 = ['Adam,apple,2850\n', 'bob,orange,-45\n', 'bob,lemon,66\n',
'bob,appl,-56\n', 'bob,,88\n']
for line in difflib.unified_diff(s1, s2, fromfile='test1.csv',
tofile='test2.csv'):
print line,
This gives:
--- test1.csv
+++ test2.csv
## -1,4 +1,4 ##
-Adam,apple,3850
+Adam,apple,2850
bob,orange,-45
bob,lemon,66
bob,appl,-56
So you can clearly see which lines were changed between test1.csv and test1.csv.

To line up the columns, you must use string formatting.
E.g. print "%-20s %-20s %-20s" % (row[0],row[1],row[2]).
To change the ? into any text test you like, you'd use s.replace('any text i like').

Your problem has more to do with the CSV format, since difflib has no idea it's looking at columnar fields. What you need is to figure out into which field the guide is pointing, so that you can adjust it when printing the columns.
If your CSV files are simple, i.e. they don't contain any quoted fields with embedded commas or (shudder) newlines, you can just use split(',') to separate them into fields, and figure out where the guide points as follows:
def align(line, guideline):
"""
Figure out which field the guide (^) points to, and the offset within it.
E.g., if the guide points 3 chars into field 2, return (2, 3)
"""
fields = line.split(',')
guide = guideline.index('^')
f = p = 0
while p + len(fields[f]) < guide:
p += len(fields[f]) + 1 # +1 for the comma
f += 1
offset = guide - p
return f, offset
Now it's easy to show the guide properly. Let's say you want to align your columns by printing everything 12 spaces wide:
diff=difflib.ndiff(...)
for line in diff:
code = line[0] # The diff prefix
print code,
if code == '?':
fld, offset = align(lastline, line[2:])
for f in range(fld):
print "%-12s" % '',
print ' '*offset + '^'
else:
fields = line[2:].rstrip('\r\n').split(',')
for f in fields:
print "%-12s" % f,
print
lastline = line[2:]
Be warned that the only reliable way to parse CSV files is to use the csv module (or a robust alternative); but getting it to play well with the diff format (in full generality) would be a bit of a headache. If you're mainly interested in readability and your CSV isn't too gnarly, you can probably live with an occasional mix-up.

Python: Read large file in chunks

Hey there, I have a rather large file that I want to process using Python and I'm kind of stuck as to how to do it.
The format of my file is like this:
0 xxx xxxx xxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
1 xxx xxxx xxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
So I basically want to read in the chunk up from 0-1, do my processing on it, then move on to the chunk between 1 and 2.
So far I've tried using a regex to match the number and then keep iterating, but I'm sure there has to be a better way of going about this. Any suggestion/info would be greatly appreciated.

If they are all within the same line, that is there are no line breaks between "1." and "2." then you can iterate over the lines of the file like this:
for line in open("myfile.txt"):
#do stuff
The line will be disposed of and overwritten at each iteration meaning you can handle large file sizes with ease. If they're not on the same line:
for line in open("myfile.txt"):
if #regex to match start of new string
parsed_line = line
else:
parsed_line += line
and the rest of your code.

Why don't you just read the file char by char using file.read(1)?
Then, you could - in each iteration - check whether you arrived at the char 1. Then you have to make sure that storing the string is fast.

If the "N " can only start a line, then why not use use the "simple" solution? (It sounds like this already being done, I am trying to reinforce/support it ;-))
That is, just reading a line at a time, and build up the data representing the current N object. After say N=0, and N=1 are loaded, process them together, then move onto the next pair (N=2, N=3). The only thing that is even remotely tricky is making sure not to throw out a read line. (The line read that determined the end condition -- e.g. "N " -- also contain the data for the next N).
Unless seeking is required (or IO caching is disabled or there is an absurd amount of data per item), there is really no reason not to use readline AFAIK.
Happy coding.
Here is some off-the-cuff code, which likely contains multiple errors. In any case, it shows the general idea using a minimized side-effect approach.
# given an input and previous item data, return either
# [item_number, data, next_overflow] if another item is read
# or None if there are no more items
def read_item (inp, overflow):
data = overflow or ""
# this can be replaced with any method to "read the header"
# the regex is just "the easiest". the contract is just:
# given "N ....", return N. given anything else, return None
def get_num(d):
m = re.match(r"(\d+) ", d)
return int(m.groups(1)) if m else None
for line in inp:
if data and get_num(line) ne None:
# already in an item (have data); current line "overflows".
# item number is still at start of current data
return [get_num(data), data, line]
# not in item, or new item not found yet
data += line
# and end of input, with data. only returns above
# if a "new" item was encountered; this covers case of
# no more items (or no items at all)
if data:
return [get_num(data), data, None]
else
return None
And usage might be akin to the following, where f represents an open file:
# check for error conditions (e.g. None returned)
# note feed-through of "overflow"
num1, data1, overflow = read_item(f, None)
num2, data2, overflow = read_item(f, overflow)

If the format is fixed, why not just read 3 lines at a time with readline()

If the file is small, you could read the whole file in and split() on number digits (might want to use strip() to get rid of whitespace and newlines), then fold over the list to process each string in the list. You'll probably have to check that the resultant string you are processing on is not initially empty in case two digits were next to each other.

If the file's content can be loaded in memory, and that's what you answered, then the following code (needs to have filename defined) may be a solution.
import re
regx = re.compile('^((\d+).*?)(?=^\d|\Z)',re.DOTALL|re.MULTILINE)
with open(filename) as f:
text = f.read()
def treat(inp,regx=regx):
m1 = regx.search(inp)
numb,chunk = m1.group(2,1)
li = [chunk]
for mat in regx.finditer(inp,m1.end()):
n,ch = mat.group(2,1)
if int(n) == int(numb) + 1:
yield ''.join(li)
numb = n
li = []
li.append(ch)
chunk = ch
yield ''.join(li)
for y in treat(text):
print repr(y)
This code, run on a file containing :
1 mountain
orange 2
apple
produce
2 gas
solemn
enlightment
protectorate
3 grimace
song
4 snow
wheat
51 guludururu
kelemekinonoto
52asabi dabada
5 yellow
6 pink
music
air
7 guitar
blank 8
8 Canada
9 Rimini
produces:
'1 mountain\norange 2\napple\nproduce\n'
'2 gas\nsolemn\nenlightment\nprotectorate\n'
'3 grimace\nsong\n'
'4 snow\nwheat\n51 guludururu\nkelemekinonoto\n52asabi dabada\n'
'5 yellow\n'
'6 pink \nmusic\nair\n'
'7 guitar\nblank 8\n'
'8 Canada\n'
'9 Rimini'

str.startswith() not working as I intended

I'm trying to test for a /t or a space character and I can't understand why this bit of code won't work. What I am doing is reading in a file, counting the loc for the file, and then recording the names of each function present within the file along with their individual lines of code. The bit of code below is where I attempt to count the loc for the functions.
import re
...
else:
loc += 1
for line in infile:
line_t = line.lstrip()
if len(line_t) > 0 \
and not line_t.startswith('#') \
and not line_t.startswith('"""'):
if not line.startswith('\s'):
print ('line = ' + repr(line))
loc += 1
return (loc, name)
else:
loc += 1
elif line_t.startswith('"""'):
while True:
if line_t.rstrip().endswith('"""'):
break
line_t = infile.readline().rstrip()
return(loc,name)
Output:
Enter the file name: test.txt
line = '\tloc = 0\n'
There were 19 lines of code in "test.txt"
Function names:
count_loc -- 2 lines of code
As you can see, my test print for the line shows a /t, but the if statement explicitly says (or so I thought) that it should only execute with no whitespace characters present.
Here is my full test file I have been using:
def count_loc(infile):
""" Receives a file and then returns the amount
of actual lines of code by not counting commented
or blank lines """
loc = 0
for line in infile:
line = line.strip()
if len(line) > 0 \
and not line.startswith('//') \
and not line.startswith('/*'):
loc += 1
func_loc, func_name = checkForFunction(line);
elif line.startswith('/*'):
while True:
if line.endswith('*/'):
break
line = infile.readline().rstrip()
return loc
if __name__ == "__main__":
print ("Hi")
Function LOC = 15
File LOC = 19

\s is only whitespace to the re package when doing pattern matching.
For startswith, an ordinary method of ordinary strings, \s is nothing special. Not a pattern, just characters.

Your question has already been answered and this is slightly off-topic, but...
If you want to parse code, it is often easier and less error-prone to use a parser. If your code is Python code, Python comes with a couple of parsers (tokenize, ast, parser). For other languages, you can find a lot of parsers on the internet. ANTRL is a well-known one with Python bindings.
As an example, the following couple of lines of code print all lines of a Python module that are not comments and not doc-strings:
import tokenize
ignored_tokens = [tokenize.NEWLINE,tokenize.COMMENT,tokenize.N_TOKENS
,tokenize.STRING,tokenize.ENDMARKER,tokenize.INDENT
,tokenize.DEDENT,tokenize.NL]
with open('test.py', 'r') as f:
g = tokenize.generate_tokens(f.readline)
line_num = 0
for a_token in g:
if a_token[2][0] != line_num and a_token[0] not in ignored_tokens:
line_num = a_token[2][0]
print(a_token)
As a_token above is already parsed, you can easily check for function definition, too. You can also keep track where the function ends by looking at the current column start a_token[2][1]. If you want to do more complex things, you should use ast.

You string literals aren't what you think they are.
You can specify a space or TAB like so:
space = ' '
tab = '\t'