Writing different sections into a file

[Peter Otten]

Palpandi wrote:

> I need to write different sections into a file.
> At any point of time, content can be added to any section.
> 
> I don't want keep each section into a temporary file.
> What is the better way to store the contents of each section and write
> them into a file at the end? What is the better datatype to achieve this?

If the data easily fits into memory just keep it in one list per section

header = [...]
body = [...]
footer = [...]

...
body.append("something more\n")
footer[:] = ["new footer\n"]
...

with open(filename, "w") as f:
    for section in (header, body, footer):
        f.writelines(section)


If the sections are not known in advance put them into a dictionary or a 
list.

If you are free to choose the file format you may use
https://docs.python.org/dev/library/configparser.html