Python: find defined text string in a file, and replace the whole line

Dark Carnival · 05-28-2004, 09:06 AM

Heya I really hope one or two python people are around. I've been looking around lately on the net for a solution to my problem. I want to mess with conf files on my system. Now they are meant to change values, therefore I can't exactly know what string I search for..

I've written something that finds and replaces a certain string in one file. All I found on the net was something that made a copy of the file and wrote the changes into the copy... So I made this, I couldn't get open("foo.txt", "r+w") to work for me

Code:

#! /usr/bin/python
# Preliminary code sample to start with..
import fileinput, string, sys
fileQuery = "usage.py"
sourceText = '''IPADDR[0]=""'''
replaceText = '''IPADDR[0]="192.168.1.102"'''
def replacemachine(fileName, sourceText, replaceText):
    ##################################################################
    file = open(fileName, "r") #Opens the file in read-mode
    text = file.read() #Reads the file and assigns the value to a variable
    file.close() #Closes the file (read session)
    file = open(fileName, "w") #Opens the file again, this time in write-mode
    file.write(text.replace(sourceText, replaceText)) #replaces all instances of our keyword
    # and writes the whole output when done, wiping over the old contents of the file
    file.close() #Closes the file (write session)
    print "All went well, the modifications are done"
    ##################################################################
replacemachine(fileQuery, sourceText, replaceText)

Now this would ONLY work if IPADDR[0] is = "" like what i search for... Is there a way to make a special sign that represents anything just like * does in bash ?
I know you can use variables inside a string like:
variableNeeded= cow
variable = "I love %s" % (variableNeeded)

Anyway I really hope to hear from anyone cause I am out of ideas (if the solution is followed up with a few links to places with lots of python info I wouldn't complain either :P )

Thanks in advance, and for your time!

kooch · 05-28-2004, 11:47 AM

Python has a regular expressions module. Check out python.org/doc for pretty much all the documentation you'll ever need.

Strike · 05-28-2004, 11:55 AM

Well, first of all, sed is probably a better tool for this, but ...

Code:

f = file(fileName)
newlines = []
for line in f:
    if 'IPADDR[0]' in line:
        # do the replacing here
    newlines.append(line)

outfile = file(outfileName, 'w')
outfile.writelines(newlines)

alternately, instead of using "if 'IPADDR[0]' in line" you could use a regexp on the line if you wanted.

lilaz · 05-21-2007, 02:42 AM

Hello,

you may want to check out the scriptutil.py module.

It is providing functions for file searching and in-line string search/replace.

ghostdog74 · 05-21-2007, 04:02 AM

Code:

import fileinput
for line in fileinput.FileInput("file",inplace=1):
    if "IPADDR[0]" in line:
        line=line.replace(<old>,<new>)
        print line

lilaz · 05-22-2007, 04:47 AM

to ghostdog74: thank you very much for pointing out the fileinput module!

Python indeed comes with the batteries included

The freplace() function (description here) should probably be refactored to make use of the fileinput module.

lilaz · 05-22-2007, 06:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ghostdog74

Code:

import fileinput
for line in fileinput.FileInput("file",inplace=1):
    if "IPADDR[0]" in line:
        line=line.replace(<old>,<new>)
        print line

Here's another solution:

Code:

bbox33:trunk $ python
Python 2.4.4 (#1, May  9 2007, 11:05:23) 
[GCC 4.0.1 (Apple Computer, Inc. build 5367)] on darwin
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import scriptutil as SU
>>> SU.freplace('.',
...             shellglobs=('file',), 
...             regexl=((r'IPADDR\[0\]', 'IPADDR[0]="192.168.1.102"', None),))
1

The freplace() function is described here.