how to replace (update) text in a file line by line

Question

I am trying to replace text in a text file by reading each line, testing it, then writing if it needs to be updated. I DO NOT want to save as a new file, as my script alrea

Answer 1

A (relatively) safe way to replace a line in a file.

#!/usr/bin/python 
# defensive programming style
# function to replace a line in a file
# and not destroy data in case of error

def replace_line(filepath, oldline, newline ):
  """ 
  replace a line in a temporary file, 
  then copy it over into the 
  original file if everything goes well

  """

 # quick parameter checks 
  assert os.exists(filepath)          # ! 
  assert ( oldline and str(oldline) ) # is not empty and is a string
  assert ( newline and str(newline) )

  replaced = False
  written  = False

  try:

    with open(filepath, 'r+') as f:    # open for read/write -- alias to f       

      lines = f.readlines()            # get all lines in file

      if oldline not in lines:
          pass                         # line not found in file, do nothing

      else:
        tmpfile = NamedTemporaryFile(delete=True)  # temp file opened for writing

        for line in lines:           # process each line
          if line == oldline:        # find the line we want 
            tmpfile.write(newline)   # replace it 
            replaced = True  
          else:
            tmpfile.write(oldline)   # write old line unchanged

        if replaced:                   # overwrite the original file     
          f.seek(0)                    # beginning of file
          f.truncate()                 # empties out original file

          for tmplines in tmpfile: 
            f.write(tmplines)          # writes each line to original file
          written = True  

      tmpfile.close()              # tmpfile auto deleted    
      f.close()                          # we opened it , we close it 

  except IOError, ioe:                 # if something bad happened.
    printf ("ERROR" , ioe)
    f.close()                        
    return False

  return replaced and written        # replacement happened with no errors = True 

(note: this replaces entire lines only , and all of the lines that match in the file)