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August 14th, 2003, 02:13 PM

Random

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Hello!

I have just started to learn python and wanted to write my first useful script. At work I do a search thru very large web log files.
So I wanted to create a script that would work like M$ search
text in files, where I would list a path and have all files where
the text occurs be written in separate log file. So far my search
in Google has not produced any sample code that would show
how to acomplish this.
Still learning and trying
tia

August 14th, 2003, 03:17 PM

netytan

Hello World :)

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Hi random,

This shouldn't be very hard. I'm assuming that the log's are all in the same dir? if so then it's even easier!

Code:

#!/usr/bin/env python

path = 'directory to search'
string = 'search string'

found = []

#open path and read a list of files
for file in os.listdir(path):
    #if 'file' is a file
    if os.path.isfile(path + file):
        #see if string is in file
        if string in open(path + file, 'r').read():
          #add file to found list.
            found.append(file)

#print files that contain the search text.            
for file in found:
    print file

This is just the basic idea, I havn't tested this but it should work.

let me knwo if it doesn't

Hope this some help,
Mark.

August 15th, 2003, 11:30 PM

Random

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Hi Mark,

Thanks for the speedy reply. As I am just starting to learn python
the comments that you have provided are going to be extremly
helpful for me to understand and learn. I have a couple of web logs at home which I would try this on. Will let you know?

Again thanks alot.
Random

August 18th, 2003, 10:04 AM

Random

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Hi Mark!

I am getting an error by running this script, and not quite sure how to fix it?

tia
random

File "D:\Python\search.py", line 13, in ?
if string in open(path + file, 'r').read():
TypeError: 'in <string>' requires character as left operand

August 18th, 2003, 10:48 AM

SolarBear

onCsdfeu

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Just in case : have you changed the values of 'directory to search' and 'search string' ? I know it happens to me sometimes.

And if you did, what were those directory and search string ? Maybe you put some illegal character or whatnot. Just put 'em here.

August 18th, 2003, 11:07 AM

Random

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All I did was to add

import os
path = 'C:/'
string = 'foo'

Was there anything that I forgot to change or supply?

August 18th, 2003, 01:44 PM

netytan

Hello World :)

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Location: Hull, UK

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I recreated the program above and it works fine for me (I've attached the source code). I've never seen that error before but if you post your code i'll take a look.. What version of Python are you using anyway?

It may be worth saying that path's in windows use '\' instead of '/' (you'll have to escape backslashes ('\\') when you use them in strings)

Have fun,
Mark.

Attached Files

search.py (255 Bytes, 602 views)

August 18th, 2003, 01:58 PM

Random

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Join Date: Aug 2003

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Thanks for trying to help me get this code running, but for me it does not work. I took your code and copied it exactly like you did
and ran it. My version of python is 2.2.

Error message

C:\>search.py
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "C:\search.py", line 12, in ?
if string in open(path + file, 'rb').read():
TypeError: 'in <string>' requires character as left operand

August 18th, 2003, 02:23 PM

netytan

Hello World :)

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I'm running Python 2.3, maybe this is something to do with that.. you could try renaming the string variable (although string isn't a reserved word).

Alternativle you could try using count instead of..

if open(path + file, 'rb').read().count(string) != 0: found.append(file)

Mark.

#10

August 18th, 2003, 02:44 PM

Random

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Upgrading to 2.3 made the error go away.
Thanks

#11

August 18th, 2003, 02:57 PM

netytan

Hello World :)

Join Date: Mar 2003

Location: Hull, UK

Posts: 2,537

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Very welcome, glad I could help. 2.3 is very nice

hope you like it, it's faster than 2.2, which seems to be the main improvment. That and a few nice module additions and improvments.

http://forums.devshed.com/t73300/s.html

Mark.

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