Python read specific lines of text

Question

I am having a problem reading specific lines. It's similar to the question answered here: python - Read file from and to specific lines of text The difference, I don't have a fixed end mark. Let me show an example:

--------------------------------
\n
***** SOMETHING *****     # i use this as my start
\n
--------------------------------
\n
data of interest
data of interest
data of interest
\n
----------------------- #this will either be dashes, or EOF
***** SOMETHING *****
-----------------------

I tried doing something similar to the above link, but I can't create a if statement to break the loop since I don't know if it will be the EOF or not.

inspectorG4dget · Accepted Answer · 2012-07-30T20:49:00.330

0

How about this:

def getBlocks(filepath):
    with open(filepath) as f:
        blocks = []
        go = False
        for line in f:
            if line.strip() == startDelimiter:
                block = ''
                go = True
            if go:
                block += line
            if line.strip() == endDelimiter:
                blocks.append(block)
                block = ''
                go = False
        if block:
            blocks.append(block)
    return blocks

edited Jul 30 '12 at 20:49

answered Jul 30 '12 at 20:37

inspectorG4dget

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correct me if i'm wrong, but in the event that my file does not have an endDelimiter (i.e. ends at the last data of interest), this wouldn't work. – user1443368 Jul 30 '12 at 20:46
You're absolutely right (I knew I forgot something). Answer updated – inspectorG4dget Jul 30 '12 at 20:49

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 30 '12 at 20:48

0

The beauty is that if you hit EOF, the file will stop iterating.

ended = False
for line in f:
    ended = line == MY_END_MARKER

answered Jul 30 '12 at 20:48

Ali Afshar

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score 0 · Answer 3 · edited Jul 31 '12 at 08:04

0

Couldn't you just do

parts = my_file.read().split("-----------------------")
print parts

edited Jul 31 '12 at 08:04

bluish

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answered Jul 30 '12 at 20:54

Joran Beasley

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Python read specific lines of text

3 Answers3

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