replace string in a file

[andrei.avk at gmail.com]

On Mar 15, 3:54 pm, Unknown <cantabile... at wanadoo.fr> wrote:
> Hi,
> I've got this code :
>
> cb = open("testfile", "r+")
> f = cb.readlines()
> for line in f:
>     rx = re.match(r'^\s*(\d+).*', line)
>     if not rx:
>         continue
>     else:
>         serial = rx.group(1)
>         now = time.time()
>         today = time.strftime('%Y%m%d00', time.localtime(now))
>         todayVal, serialVal = long(today), long(serial)
>         if todayVal <= serialVal:
>             todayVal = serialVal + 1
>         else:
>             todayVal += 1
>         line = string.replace(line, serial, "%d" %todayVal)
>         cb.write(line + "\n")
>         print 'Updated serial from "%s" to "%d"' % ( serial, todayVal )
>         break      
> cb.close()
>
> I was expecting to replace the old value (serial) with the new one
> (todayVal). Instead, this code *adds* another line below the one found...
>
> How can I just replace it?
>
> Thanks for your help :-)

What you want to do is either 1. load everything up into a string,
replace
text, close file, reopen it with 'w' flag, write string to it. OR if
file is too big, you can read each line, replace, write to a temp
file,
then when done move the file over the old one.

I think there are technical reasons why file-reading and iteration api
are not very suitable for reading and writing at the same time. I
think
you'd have to set the filepointer back one line (it can be manipulated
by giving it bytes ahead/back, so that would be difficult in itself),
then delete the line and then write new string. It may be even harder
than
that, I'm sure someone can explain this much better, but you're far
better
off with using one of the 2 methods above.. HTH, -ak