[Tutor] Text processing with files

[Erik Price]

On Saturday, October 25, 2003, at 11:48  PM, Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:

> I
> wrote a script but all it did was blank the file. It
> is posted below.
>
> from os import linesep
> filepath = raw_input("Convert which file? ")
> fileread = file(filepath, "r")
> filewrite = file(filepath, "w")
> text = fileread.read()
> fileread.close()
> fixedtext = text.replace('\n', linesep)
> filewrite.write(fixedtext)
> filewrite.close()
>
> What's wrong with it?

When you open a file for writing using file(filepathe, 'w'), Python 
wipes out the contents of the file.  You're doing this before you 
actually read through the file and store its contents into the "text" 
variable.  So, if you simply move your line "filewrite = file(filepath, 
'w')" line down below "fileread.close()" you should be fine.

In other words, close the file from reading before opening it for 
writing.


Erik