[Tutor] Finding word in file

[Alan G]

> I'm making a program that opens a file and tries to find the word
you specify.
> I can't get  it to find the word!

What are you trying?
You could simply read through the file line by line using the string
search methods. Store the previous 2 lines then when found print the
previous two lines, the current line and then read and print the next
two lines. There are more sophisticated methods but that should do...

> One more thing, the try: IOError won't work... I type the name of a
> nonexistent file and the except won't kick in and print my error
message!

> while True:
>      file_name = raw_input("Enter the full file name: ")
>      f = file(file_name, 'r')
>      try:
>          IOError
>      except:
>          print "File not found. Directories are not supported"

You need to catch the error not state it.

try: f = file(....)
except IOError: print 'file not....'

If you do want to force an error to be raised you must use raise:

try: raise IOError
except IOError: print 'sure enough...'

See my tutorial topic on errors for more info.

Alan G
Author of the Learn to Program web tutor
http://www.freenetpages.co.uk/hp/alan.gauld