Python: replace string with regex

Question

my problem here is that I have a huge amount of files. Each xml file contains ID. And I got set of source and target files. Source files has name A and ID = B. Target file has name B and ID=B What I need to do is to match source ID B with Target name B and then replace target ID=B with source name A. Hope its clear

Here is my code

import os
import re

sourcepath = input('Path to source folder:\n')
targetpath = input('Path to target folder:\n')
for root,dir,source in os.walk(sourcepath):
    for each_file in source:
        os.chdir(root)
        correctID = each_file[:16]
        each_xml = open(each_file, 'r', encoding='utf8').read()
        findsourceID = re.findall('id="\w{3}\d{13}"', each_xml)
        StringID = str(findsourceID)
        correctFilename = StringID[6:22]
        IDtoreplace = 'id="' + correctID + '"'
        print(IDtoreplace)
        for main,folder,target in os.walk(targetpath):
            for each_target in target:
                os.chdir(main)
                targetname = each_target[:16]
                if targetname == correctFilename:
                    with open(each_target, 'r+', encoding='utf8') as each_targ:
                        each_targ.read()
                        findtargetID = re.sub('id="\w{3}\d{13}"',str(IDtoreplace), each_targ)
                        each_targ.close()

And here is the error

File "C:/Users/ms/Desktop/Project/test.py", line 23, in <module>
    findtargetID = re.sub('id="\w{3}\d{13}"',str(IDtoreplace), each_targ)
  File "C:\Users\ms\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python35\lib\re.py", line 182, in sub
    return _compile(pattern, flags).sub(repl, string, count)
TypeError: expected string or bytes-like object

Please help I need to complete it today :(:(:(

MaciejPL
– MaciejPL

2016-08-17 11:12:24 +00:00
Commented Aug 17, 2016 at 11:12 — MaciejPL
– MaciejPL, Commented Aug 17, 2016 at 11:12

mike3996 · Accepted Answer · 2016-08-17 11:19:23Z

1

You read() from each_targ but you don't store the string anywhere.

Instead you pass the file handle each_targ to .sub and that causes the type mismatch here. You could just say:

findtargetID = re.sub('id="\w{3}\d{13}"',str(IDtoreplace), each_targ.read())

answered Aug 17, 2016 at 11:19

mike3996

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4 Comments

MaciejPL Over a year ago

yes it does not call an error but do not save the file. I mean nothing was changed

MaciejPL Over a year ago

what I'm doing wrong that file do not want to save

MaciejPL Over a year ago

I did something like that but it adds text rather then edits targetID = (re.sub(r'id="\w{3}\d{13}"', strtarget, each_targ.read())) each_targ.write(targetID) each_targ.close()

mike3996 Over a year ago

@MaciejPL: yes it adds because there's no really in-place file editing. The easiest way should be to open the target file again (close the first one after you have read the contents in memory) with w flag. It will truncate the file into zero size first! Then once you write and close it, it will look as is edited.

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