Let's say I have a text file containing:
Dan
Warrior
500
1
0
Is there a way I can edit a specific line in that text file? Right now I have this:
#!/usr/bin/env python
import io
myfile = open('stats.txt', 'r')
dan = myfile.readline()
print dan
print "Your name: " + dan.split('\n')[0]
try:
myfile = open('stats.txt', 'a')
myfile.writelines('Mage')[1]
except IOError:
myfile.close()
finally:
myfile.close()
Yes, I know that myfile.writelines('Mage')[1] is incorrect. But you get my point, right? I'm trying to edit line 2 by replacing Warrior with Mage. But can I even do that?
You want to do something like this:
# with is like your try .. finally block in this case
with open('stats.txt', 'r') as file:
# read a list of lines into data
data = file.readlines()
print data
print "Your name: " + data[0]
# now change the 2nd line, note that you have to add a newline
data[1] = 'Mage\n'
# and write everything back
with open('stats.txt', 'w') as file:
file.writelines( data )
The reason for this is that you can't do something like "change line 2" directly in a file. You can only overwrite (not delete) parts of a file - that means that the new content just covers the old content. So, if you wrote 'Mage' over line 2, the resulting line would be 'Mageior'.
you can use fileinput to do in place editing
import fileinput
for line in fileinput.FileInput("myfile", inplace=1):
if line .....:
print line