Reputation: 1
I have tried to create a python function which takes in 2 parameters; a file name and a search string. In this case the file name is the script itself (script.py) and the search string is 'name = "JOHN"'
#!/usr/local/bin/python2.7
import os, sys
#################
# Variable string
name = "JOHN"
#################
# Main function
def search_script_for_string(filename, searchString):
f = open(filename,'r') #open the given filename then
filedata = f.read() #assign it to variable then
f.close() #close the open filename
for lines in filedata: #loop through each line in the filedata variable
if searchString in lines: #if search string is found, then do all of this
print ('Found string: %s') % searchString
return True
else: #if not found, then do all of this
print ('Did not find: %s') % searchString
return False
break
#################
# Pass the file name and the search string parameter to the function
search_script_for_string("test.py","name = \"" + name + "\"")
The problem is that it doesn't return expected results:
$ Did not find: name = "JOHN"
When it meant to say:
$ Found string: name = "JOHN"
If anyone can help correct my understanding of where I'm going wrong here, I'd be massively appreciative. Thanks
Upvotes: 0
Views: 582
Reputation: 9122
You are iterating over each character of the file by calling for c in f.read()
.
Use for line in f
and you will indeed iterate over each line.
Also prefer the use of with
, this makes your code a lot more robust.
So this would be better:
with open('fileName') as f:
for line in f:
#process
Upvotes: 0
Reputation: 310167
f.read()
returns the entire contents of the file as a single string. You then iterate over those contents -- but iterating over a string yields only 1 character at a time so there is no way a character will contain the substring you are looking for.
def search_script_for_string(filename, searchString):
with open(filename, 'r') as f:
return searchString in f.read()
should do the trick. Alternatively, if you want to search line-by-line:
def search_script_for_string(filename, searchString):
with open(filename, 'r') as f:
for line in f:
return searchString in line
Upvotes: 2