python3 opening files and reading lines - python-3.x

Can you explain what is going on in this code? I don't seem to understand
how you can open the file and read it line by line instead of all of the sentences at the same time in a for loop. Thanks
Let's say I have these sentences in a document file:
cat:dog:mice
cat1:dog1:mice1
cat2:dog2:mice2
cat3:dog3:mice3
Here is the code:
from sys import argv
filename = input("Please enter the name of a file: ")
f = open(filename,'r')
d1ct = dict()
print("Number of times each animal visited each station:")
print("Animal Id Station 1 Station 2")
for line in f:
if '\n' == line[-1]:
line = line[:-1]
(AnimalId, Timestamp, StationId,) = line.split(':')
key = (AnimalId,StationId,)
if key not in d1ct:
d1ct[key] = 0
d1ct[key] += 1

The magic is at:
for line in f:
if '\n' == line[-1]:
line = line[:-1]
Python file objects are special in that they can be iterated over in a for loop. On each iteration, it retrieves the next line of the file. Because it includes the last character in the line, which could be a newline, it's often useful to check and remove the last character.

As Moshe wrote, open file objects can be iterated. Only, they are not of the file type in Python 3.x (as they were in Python 2.x). If the file object is opened in text mode, then the unit of iteration is one text line including the \n.
You can use line = line.rstrip() to remove the \n plus the trailing withespaces.
If you want to read the content of the file at once (into a multiline string), you can use content = f.read().
There is a minor bug in the code. The open file should always be closed. I means to use f.close() after the for loop. Or you can wrap the open to the newer with construct that will close the file for you -- I suggest to get used to the later approach.

Related

file reading in python usnig different methods

# open file in read mode
f=open(text_file,'r')
# iterate over the file object
for line in f.read():
print(line)
# close the file
f.close()
the content of file is "Congratulations you have successfully opened the file"! when i try to run this code the output comes in following form:
c (newline) o (newline) n (newline) g.................
...... that is each character is printed individually on a new line because i used read()! but with readline it gives the answer in a single line! why is it so?
r.read() returns one string will all characters (the full file content).
Iterating a string iterates it character wise.
Use
for line in f: # no read()
instead to iterate line wise.
f.read() returns the whole file in a string. for i in iterates something. For a string, it iterates over its characters.
For readline(), it should not print the line. It would read the first line of the file, then print it character by character, like read. Is it possible that you used readlines(), which returns the lines as a list.
One more thing: there is with which takes a "closable" object and auto-closes it at the end of scope. And you can iterate over a file object. So, your code can be improved like this:
with open(text_file, 'r') as f:
for i in f:
print(i)

Python 3.x outputting a text file with names of files that contain a list of words

I have approximately 160,000 text files in a directory. My first objective is to create a list of files that contain at least one item from a list of about 50 keywords. My current code is
import os
ngwrds= [list of words]
for filename in os.listdir(os.getcwd()):
with open(filename, 'r') as searchfile:
for line in searchfile:
if any(x in line for x in ngwrds):
with open("keyword.txt", 'a') as out:
out.write(filename + '\n')
Which works but sends out duplicate filenames. Ideally what I would like is for the loop to stop once it hits the first keyword, write the file name to 'keyword.txt', and move on to the next file in the directory. Any thoughts on how to do this?
A more in depth answer to #strubbly's comment, you would simply add a break in the 2nd for loop
with open(filename, 'r') as searchfile:
for line in searchfile:
if any(x in line for x in ngwrds):
with open("keyword.txt", 'a') as out:
out.write(filename + '\n')
break
What does the break do? from the python3 docs:
The break statement, like in C, breaks out of the smallest enclosing for or while loop.
for more information on break go to the control flow documentation :https://docs.python.org/3/tutorial/controlflow.html

Using for loop to strip white space and resetting the pointer prior to reading a file

I'm using Pycharm and have been very happy so far. However, today I ran into a issue that I can't figure out or explain. The code will prompt the user for an input file. The file is a .txt file that contains lines of words. After the user provides the filename, the program will open it, remove white spaces at the end of the lines and print the contents of the file. (lots_of_words.txt = example)
INPUT
print(lots_of_words.txt)
OUTPUT
Programming is fun and will save the world from errors! ....
Here is the part of the code that is causing the confusion:
user_input = input('Enter the file name: ')
open_file = open(user_input)
for line in open_file:
line = line.rstrip()
read_file = open_file.read()
print(read_file)
OUTPUT
Process finished with exit code 0
Now by just removing the for loop with string.rstrip(), the text file prints fine:
INPUT
user_input = input('Enter the file name: ')
open_file = open(user_input)
# Removed for loop
read_file = open_file.read()
print(read_file)
OUTPUT
Programming is fun and will save the world from errors! ....
I'm using python 3.4 with Pycharm IDE. I realize that the script completed fine without errors, but why won't it print the final variable? I'm sure this is a simple answer, but I can't figure it out.
Running the same code in Python 2.7, prints fine even with string.rstrip().
It has nothing to do with PyCharm.
Your for moves the pointer to the end of the file. To use open_file again, use seek(0), before printing.
open_file = open(user_input)
for line in open_file:
line = line.rstrip()
open_file.seek(0)
read_file = open_file.read()
print(read_file)
Not the most efficient solution though (if efficiency matters in given situation), since you read all the lines twice. You can either store each line after reading it (as suggested in the other answer), or print each line after striping it.
Also, rstrip() will remove whitespaces at the end of the string, but not '\n'.
Irrelevant: You should use with open() as.. : instead of open() since it closes the file automatically.
Iterating over your file object in the for loop will consume it, so there will be nothing left to read, you're simply discarding all lines.
If you want to strip all whitespace from all lines, you could use:
user_input = input('Enter the file name: ')
open_file = open(user_input)
lines = []
for line in open_file:
lines.append(line.rstrip())
print(''.join(lines))
or even shorter:
print(''.join(line.rstrip() for line in open_file))

User input after file input in Python?

First year Comp Sci student here.
I have an assignment that is asking us to make a simple game using Python, which takes an input file to create the game-world (2D grid). You're then supposed to give movement commands via user input afterwards. My program reads the input file one line at a time to create the world using:
def getFile():
try:
line = input()
except EOFError:
line = EOF
return line
...after which it creates a list to represent the line, with each member being a character in the line, and then creates a list containing each of these lists (amounting to a grid with row and column coordinates).
The thing is, I later need to take input in order to move the character, and I can't do this because it still wants to read the file input, and the last line from the file is an EOF character, causing an error. Specifically the "EOF when reading a line" error.
How can I get around this?
Sounds like you are reading the file directly from stdin -- something like:
python3 my_game.py < game_world.txt
Instead, you need to pass the file name as an argument to your program, that way stdin will still be connected to the console:
python3 my_game.py game_world.txt
and then get_file looks more like:
def getFile(file_name):
with open(file_name) as fh:
for line in fh:
return line
File interaction is python3 goes like this:
# the open keyword opens a file in read-only mode by default
f = open("path/to/file.txt")
# read all the lines in the file and return them in a list
lines = f.readlines()
#or iterate them at the same time
for line in f:
#now get each character from each line
for char_in_line in line:
#do something
#close file
f.close()
line terminator for the file is by default \n
If you want something else you pass it as a parameter to the open method (the newline parameter. Default=None='\n'):
open(file, mode='r', buffering=-1, encoding=None, errors=None, newline=None, closefd=True, opener=None)

Something's wrong with my Python code (complete beginner)

So I am completely new to Python and can't figure out what's wrong with my code.
I need to write a program that asks for the name of the existing text file and then of the other one, that doesn't necessarily need to exist. The task of the program is to take content of the first file, convert it to upper-case letters and paste to the second file. Then it should return the number of symbols used in the file(s).
The code is:
file1 = input("The name of the first text file: ")
file2 = input("The name of the second file: ")
f = open(file1)
file1content = f.read()
f.close
f2 = open(file2, "w")
file2content = f2.write(file1content.upper())
f2.close
print("There is ", len(str(file2content)), "symbols in the second file.")
I created two text files to check whether Python performs the operations correctly. Turns out the length of the file(s) is incorrect as there were 18 symbols in my file(s) and Python showed there were 2.
Could you please help me with this one?
Issues I see with your code:
close is a method, so you need to use the () operator otherwise f.close does not do what your think.
It is usually preferred in any case to use the with form of opening a file -- then it is close automatically at the end.
the write method does not return anything, so file2content = f2.write(file1content.upper()) is None
There is no reason the read the entire file contents in; just loop over each line if it is a text file.
(Not tested) but I would write your program like this:
file1 = input("The name of the first text file: ")
file2 = input("The name of the second file: ")
chars=0
with open(file1) as f, open(file2, 'w') as f2:
for line in f:
f2.write(line.upper())
chars+=len(line)
print("There are ", chars, "symbols in the second file.")
input() does not do what you expect, use raw_input() instead.

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