CODEWITHSUNDEEP
pythonsearch
iLuPa
iLuPa

Reputation: 151

Python: searching for a string on a file

I'm trying to search for today's date (2017-05-03) on a file populated with several dates. If the date is found on the file, then it returns true and continues the script, if not it ends the execution.

Here's my sample days.txt file:

2017-05-01
2017-05-03
2017-04-03

This is my script:

# Function to search the file
def search_string(filename, searchString):
    with open(filename, 'r') as f:
        for line in f:
            return searchString in line

# Getting today's date and formatting as Y-m-d
today = str(datetime.datetime.now().strftime("%Y-%m-%d"))

# Searching the script for the date
if search_string('days.txt', today):
    print "Found the date. Continue script"
else:
    print "Didn't find the date, end execution"

However it always returns False, even if the date is present on my txt file. I don't know what I'm doing wrong.

Upvotes: 2

Views: 83

Answers (2)

luoluo
luoluo

Reputation: 5533

You return from the search too early.

FIX 

# Function to search the file
def search_string(filename, searchString):
    with open(filename, 'r') as f:
        for line in f:
            if searchString in line: 
                return True
    return False

Upvotes: 0

Pierre.Sassoulas
Pierre.Sassoulas

Reputation: 4282

Your function is testing only the first line, so it return True only if the first line contain your string. It should be :

def search_string(filename, searchString):
    with open(filename, 'r') as f:
        for line in f:
            if searchString in line:
                return True
    return False

Upvotes: 2

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