Python Read File, Look up a String and Remove Characters

Question

I have a set of numbers (NDC - drug numbers) that have a - in them. I am trying to read the file, remove the - and write the numbers to a new file.

Answer 1

with open(r'c:\NDCHypen.txt', 'r') as infile, \
     open(r'c:\NDCOnly.txt', 'w') as outfile:
    data = infile.read()
    data = data.replace("-", "")
    outfile.write(data)

To prevent the conversion of line endings (e.g. between '\r\n' and \n'), open both files in binary mode: pass 'rb' or 'wb' as the 2nd arg of open.

Answer 2

You can do it easily with a shell script which would be must faster than a python implementation. Unless you have something more with the script, you should go with the shell script version.

However, with Python it would be:

with open('c:\NDCHypen.txt', 'r') as infile, open('c:\NDCOnly.txt', 'w') as outfile:
    temp = infile.read().replace("-", "")
    outfile.write(temp)