Develop Reference

Bulk autoreplacing string in the KML file

I have a set of placemarks, which include quite a wide description included in its balloon within the property. Next each single description (former column header) is bounded in . Because of the shapefile naming restriction to 10 characters only.
https://gis.stackexchange.com/questions/15784/bypassing-10-character-limit-of-field-name-in-shapefiles
I have to retype most of these names manually.
Obviously, I use Notepad++, where I can swiftly press Ctrl+F and toggle Replace mode, as you can see below.
The green bounded strings were already replaced, the red ones still remain.
Basically, if I press "Replace All" then it works fine and quickly. Unfortunately, I have to go one by one. As you can see I have around 20 separate strings to "Replace all". Is there a possibility to do it quicker? Because all the .kml files are similar to each other, this is going to be the same everywhere. I need some tool, which will be able to do auto-replace for these headers cut by 10 characters limit. I think, that maybe Python tools might be helpful.
https://pythonhosted.org/pykml/
But in the tool above there is no information about bulk KML editing.
How can I set something like the "Replace All" tool for all my strings preferably if possible?
UPDATE:
I tried the code below:
files = []
with open("YesNF016.kml") as f:
for line in f.readlines():
if line[-1] == '\n':
files.append(line[:-1])
else:
files.append(line)
old_expression = 'ab'
new_expression = 'it worked'
for file in files:
new_file = ""
with open(file) as f:
for line in f.readlines():
new_file += line.replace(old_expression, new_expression)
with open(file, 'w') as f:
f.write(new_file)
The debugger shows:
[Errno 22] Invalid argument: ''
File "\test.py", line 13, in
with open(file) as f:
whereas line 13 is:
with open(file) as f:
The solutions here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/learnpython/comments/b9cljd/oserror_while_using_elementtree_to_parse_simple/
and
OSError: [Errno 22] Invalid argument Getting invalid argument while parsing xml in python
weren't helpful enough for me.

So you want to replace all occurence of X to Y in bunch of files ?
Pretty easy.
Just create a file_list.txt containing the list of files to edit.
python code:
files = []
with open("file_list.txt") as f:
for line in f.readlines():
if line[-1] == '\n':
files.append(line[:-1])
else:
files.append(line)
old_expression = 'ab'
new_expression = 'it worked'
for file in files:
new_file = ""
with open(file) as f:
for line in f.readlines():
new_file += line.replace(old_expression, new_expression)
with open(file, 'w') as f:
f.write(new_file)

Not able to clear file Contents

I have a file which has below data.
edit 48
set dst 192.168.4.0 255.255.255.0
set device "Tague-VPN"
set comment "Yeshtel"
edit 180
set dst 64.219.107.45 255.255.255.255
set device "Austin-Backup"
set comment "images.gsmc.org"
I want to copy the commands under edit only if Set device is Austin-Backup.
string = 'set device'
word = '"Austin-Backup"'
with open('test.txt') as oldfile, open('script.txt', 'w') as newfile:
for line in oldfile:
newfile.write(line)
newfile.write('\n')
if string not in line:
pass
elif string in line:
if word not in line:
a = open('script.txt', 'w')
a.close()
else:
pass
I am trying to write test file content to new file(script) and if command "set comment "Yeshtel"" is found i want to delete contents in new file. I tried to delete but its not happening. I am new to Python, Can you please tell what is the Prob??
I got to know that reopening the same file in Write mode will clear the contents..

I suspect the issue is that you have the same file open twice, once as newfile and a second time as a. While it should be truncated when you open it as a and then close it, the writes you made on newfile may still appear if the filesystem had cached them until after the truncated version was written.
I suggest only opening the file once. When you need to truncate it, call the truncate method on it.
if word not in line:
newfile.truncate()
If you might write more to the file after truncating, you should probably also seek back to the start position (e.g. newfile.seek(0)). If you're going to be done with the file after truncating it, that step is not needed.

Should be something like this
temp_lines = []
last_line_was_edit = False
found_keyword = False
keyword = "Austin-Backup"
with open('test.txt') as oldfile, open('script.txt', 'w') as newfile:
for line in oldfile:
if last_line_was_edit and temp_lines:
if found_keyword:
newfile.writelines(temp_lines)
temp_lines = []
if line.startswith("edit"):
last_line_was_edit = True
else:
if keyword in line:
found_keyword = True
temp_lines.append(line)
Please note that you should not open the file twice. Just use an temporary variable and write only what have to be written

Why do I get "Pickle - EOFError: Ran out of input" reading an empty file?

I am getting an interesting error while trying to use Unpickler.load(), here is the source code:
open(target, 'a').close()
scores = {};
with open(target, "rb") as file:
unpickler = pickle.Unpickler(file);
scores = unpickler.load();
if not isinstance(scores, dict):
scores = {};
Here is the traceback:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "G:\python\pendu\user_test.py", line 3, in <module>:
save_user_points("Magix", 30);
File "G:\python\pendu\user.py", line 22, in save_user_points:
scores = unpickler.load();
EOFError: Ran out of input
The file I am trying to read is empty.
How can I avoid getting this error, and get an empty variable instead?

Most of the answers here have dealt with how to mange EOFError exceptions, which is really handy if you're unsure about whether the pickled object is empty or not.
However, if you're surprised that the pickle file is empty, it could be because you opened the filename through 'wb' or some other mode that could have over-written the file.
for example:
filename = 'cd.pkl'
with open(filename, 'wb') as f:
classification_dict = pickle.load(f)
This will over-write the pickled file. You might have done this by mistake before using:
...
open(filename, 'rb') as f:
And then got the EOFError because the previous block of code over-wrote the cd.pkl file.
When working in Jupyter, or in the console (Spyder) I usually write a wrapper over the reading/writing code, and call the wrapper subsequently. This avoids common read-write mistakes, and saves a bit of time if you're going to be reading the same file multiple times through your travails

I would check that the file is not empty first:
import os
scores = {} # scores is an empty dict already
if os.path.getsize(target) > 0:
with open(target, "rb") as f:
unpickler = pickle.Unpickler(f)
# if file is not empty scores will be equal
# to the value unpickled
scores = unpickler.load()
Also open(target, 'a').close() is doing nothing in your code and you don't need to use ;.

It is very likely that the pickled file is empty.
It is surprisingly easy to overwrite a pickle file if you're copying and pasting code.
For example the following writes a pickle file:
pickle.dump(df,open('df.p','wb'))
And if you copied this code to reopen it, but forgot to change 'wb' to 'rb' then you would overwrite the file:
df=pickle.load(open('df.p','wb'))
The correct syntax is
df=pickle.load(open('df.p','rb'))

As you see, that's actually a natural error ..
A typical construct for reading from an Unpickler object would be like this ..
try:
data = unpickler.load()
except EOFError:
data = list() # or whatever you want
EOFError is simply raised, because it was reading an empty file, it just meant End of File ..

You can catch that exception and return whatever you want from there.
open(target, 'a').close()
scores = {};
try:
with open(target, "rb") as file:
unpickler = pickle.Unpickler(file);
scores = unpickler.load();
if not isinstance(scores, dict):
scores = {};
except EOFError:
return {}

if path.exists(Score_file):
try :
with open(Score_file , "rb") as prev_Scr:
return Unpickler(prev_Scr).load()
except EOFError :
return dict()

Had the same issue. It turns out when I was writing to my pickle file I had not used the file.close(). Inserted that line in and the error was no more.

I have encountered this error many times and it always occurs because after writing into the file, I didn't close it. If we don't close the file the content stays in the buffer and the file stays empty.
To save the content into the file, either file should be closed or file_object should go out of scope.
That's why at the time of loading it's giving the ran out of input error because the file is empty. So you have two options :
file_object.close()
file_object.flush(): if you don't wanna close your file in between the program, you can use the flush() function as it will forcefully move the content from the buffer to the file.

This error comes when your pickle file is empty (0 Bytes). You need to check the size of your pickle file first. This was the scenario in my case. Hope this helps!

Note that the mode of opening files is 'a' or some other have alphabet 'a' will also make error because of the overwritting.
pointer = open('makeaafile.txt', 'ab+')
tes = pickle.load(pointer, encoding='utf-8')

temp_model = os.path.join(models_dir, train_type + '_' + part + '_' + str(pc))
# print(type(temp_model)) # <class 'str'>
filehandler = open(temp_model, "rb")
# print(type(filehandler)) # <class '_io.BufferedReader'>
try:
pdm_temp = pickle.load(filehandler)
except UnicodeDecodeError:
pdm_temp = pickle.load(filehandler, fix_imports=True, encoding="latin1")

from os.path import getsize as size
from pickle import *
if size(target)>0:
with open(target,'rb') as f:
scores={i:j for i,j in enumerate(load(f))}
else: scores={}
#line 1.
we importing Function 'getsize' from Library 'OS' sublibrary 'path' and we rename it with command 'as' for shorter style of writing. Important is hier that we loading only one single Func that we need and not whole Library!
line 2.
Same Idea, but when we dont know wich modul we will use in code at the begining, we can import all library using a command '*'.
line 3.
Conditional Statement... if size of your file >0 ( means obj is not an empty). 'target' is variable that schould be a bit earlier predefined.
just an Example : target=(r'd:\dir1\dir.2..\YourDataFile.bin')
Line 4.
'With open(target) as file:' an open construction for any file, u dont need then to use file.close(). it helps to avoid some typical Errors such as "Run out of input" or Permissions rights.
'rb' mod means 'rea binary' that u can only read(load) the data from your binary file but u cant modify/rewrite it.
Line5.
List comprehension method in applying to a Dictionary..
line 6. Case your datafile is empty, it will not raise an any Error msg, but return just an empty dictionary.

Confusing Error when Reading from a File in Python

I'm having a problem opening the names.txt file. I have checked that I am in the correct directory. Below is my code:
import os
print(os.getcwd())
def alpha_sort():
infile = open('names', 'r')
string = infile.read()
string = string.replace('"','')
name_list = string.split(',')
name_list.sort()
infile.close()
return 0
alpha_sort()
And the error I got:
FileNotFoundError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: 'names'
Any ideas on what I'm doing wrong?

You mention in your question body that the file is "names.txt", however your code shows you trying to open a file called "names" (without the ".txt" extension). (Extensions are part of filenames.)
Try this instead:
infile = open('names.txt', 'r')

As a side note, make sure that when you open files you use universal mode, as windows and mac/unix have different representations of carriage returns (/r/n vs /n etc.). Universal mode gets python to handle this, so it's generally a good idea to use it whenever you need to read a file. (EDIT - should read: a text file, thanks cameron)
So the code would just look like this
infile = open( 'names.txt', 'rU' ) #capital U indicated to open the file in universal mode

This doesn't solve that issue, but you might consider using with when opening files:
with open('names', 'r') as infile:
string = infile.read()
string = string.replace('"','')
name_list = string.split(',')
name_list.sort()
return 0
This closes the file for you and handles exceptions as well.

How to modify a text file?

I'm using Python, and would like to insert a string into a text file without deleting or copying the file. How can I do that?

Unfortunately there is no way to insert into the middle of a file without re-writing it. As previous posters have indicated, you can append to a file or overwrite part of it using seek but if you want to add stuff at the beginning or the middle, you'll have to rewrite it.
This is an operating system thing, not a Python thing. It is the same in all languages.
What I usually do is read from the file, make the modifications and write it out to a new file called myfile.txt.tmp or something like that. This is better than reading the whole file into memory because the file may be too large for that. Once the temporary file is completed, I rename it the same as the original file.
This is a good, safe way to do it because if the file write crashes or aborts for any reason, you still have your untouched original file.

Depends on what you want to do. To append you can open it with "a":
with open("foo.txt", "a") as f:
f.write("new line\n")
If you want to preprend something you have to read from the file first:
with open("foo.txt", "r+") as f:
old = f.read() # read everything in the file
f.seek(0) # rewind
f.write("new line\n" + old) # write the new line before

The fileinput module of the Python standard library will rewrite a file inplace if you use the inplace=1 parameter:
import sys
import fileinput
# replace all occurrences of 'sit' with 'SIT' and insert a line after the 5th
for i, line in enumerate(fileinput.input('lorem_ipsum.txt', inplace=1)):
sys.stdout.write(line.replace('sit', 'SIT')) # replace 'sit' and write
if i == 4: sys.stdout.write('\n') # write a blank line after the 5th line

Rewriting a file in place is often done by saving the old copy with a modified name. Unix folks add a ~ to mark the old one. Windows folks do all kinds of things -- add .bak or .old -- or rename the file entirely or put the ~ on the front of the name.
import shutil
shutil.move(afile, afile + "~")
destination= open(aFile, "w")
source= open(aFile + "~", "r")
for line in source:
destination.write(line)
if <some condition>:
destination.write(<some additional line> + "\n")
source.close()
destination.close()
Instead of shutil, you can use the following.
import os
os.rename(aFile, aFile + "~")

Python's mmap module will allow you to insert into a file. The following sample shows how it can be done in Unix (Windows mmap may be different). Note that this does not handle all error conditions and you might corrupt or lose the original file. Also, this won't handle unicode strings.
import os
from mmap import mmap
def insert(filename, str, pos):
if len(str) < 1:
# nothing to insert
return
f = open(filename, 'r+')
m = mmap(f.fileno(), os.path.getsize(filename))
origSize = m.size()
# or this could be an error
if pos > origSize:
pos = origSize
elif pos < 0:
pos = 0
m.resize(origSize + len(str))
m[pos+len(str):] = m[pos:origSize]
m[pos:pos+len(str)] = str
m.close()
f.close()
It is also possible to do this without mmap with files opened in 'r+' mode, but it is less convenient and less efficient as you'd have to read and temporarily store the contents of the file from the insertion position to EOF - which might be huge.

As mentioned by Adam you have to take your system limitations into consideration before you can decide on approach whether you have enough memory to read it all into memory replace parts of it and re-write it.
If you're dealing with a small file or have no memory issues this might help:
Option 1)
Read entire file into memory, do a regex substitution on the entire or part of the line and replace it with that line plus the extra line. You will need to make sure that the 'middle line' is unique in the file or if you have timestamps on each line this should be pretty reliable.
# open file with r+b (allow write and binary mode)
f = open("file.log", 'r+b')
# read entire content of file into memory
f_content = f.read()
# basically match middle line and replace it with itself and the extra line
f_content = re.sub(r'(middle line)', r'\1\nnew line', f_content)
# return pointer to top of file so we can re-write the content with replaced string
f.seek(0)
# clear file content
f.truncate()
# re-write the content with the updated content
f.write(f_content)
# close file
f.close()
Option 2)
Figure out middle line, and replace it with that line plus the extra line.
# open file with r+b (allow write and binary mode)
f = open("file.log" , 'r+b')
# get array of lines
f_content = f.readlines()
# get middle line
middle_line = len(f_content)/2
# overwrite middle line
f_content[middle_line] += "\nnew line"
# return pointer to top of file so we can re-write the content with replaced string
f.seek(0)
# clear file content
f.truncate()
# re-write the content with the updated content
f.write(''.join(f_content))
# close file
f.close()

Wrote a small class for doing this cleanly.
import tempfile
class FileModifierError(Exception):
pass
class FileModifier(object):
def __init__(self, fname):
self.__write_dict = {}
self.__filename = fname
self.__tempfile = tempfile.TemporaryFile()
with open(fname, 'rb') as fp:
for line in fp:
self.__tempfile.write(line)
self.__tempfile.seek(0)
def write(self, s, line_number = 'END'):
if line_number != 'END' and not isinstance(line_number, (int, float)):
raise FileModifierError("Line number %s is not a valid number" % line_number)
try:
self.__write_dict[line_number].append(s)
except KeyError:
self.__write_dict[line_number] = [s]
def writeline(self, s, line_number = 'END'):
self.write('%s\n' % s, line_number)
def writelines(self, s, line_number = 'END'):
for ln in s:
self.writeline(s, line_number)
def __popline(self, index, fp):
try:
ilines = self.__write_dict.pop(index)
for line in ilines:
fp.write(line)
except KeyError:
pass
def close(self):
self.__exit__(None, None, None)
def __enter__(self):
return self
def __exit__(self, type, value, traceback):
with open(self.__filename,'w') as fp:
for index, line in enumerate(self.__tempfile.readlines()):
self.__popline(index, fp)
fp.write(line)
for index in sorted(self.__write_dict):
for line in self.__write_dict[index]:
fp.write(line)
self.__tempfile.close()
Then you can use it this way:
with FileModifier(filename) as fp:
fp.writeline("String 1", 0)
fp.writeline("String 2", 20)
fp.writeline("String 3") # To write at the end of the file

If you know some unix you could try the following:
Notes: $ means the command prompt
Say you have a file my_data.txt with content as such:
$ cat my_data.txt
This is a data file
with all of my data in it.
Then using the os module you can use the usual sed commands
import os
# Identifiers used are:
my_data_file = "my_data.txt"
command = "sed -i 's/all/none/' my_data.txt"
# Execute the command
os.system(command)
If you aren't aware of sed, check it out, it is extremely useful.