How do I search and replace text in a file using Python 3?

Here is my code:

import os
import sys
import fileinput

print ("Text to search for:")
textToSearch = input( "> " )

print ("Text to replace it with:")
textToReplace = input( "> " )

print ("File to perform Search-Replace on:")
fileToSearch  = input( "> " )
#fileToSearch = 'D:\dummy1.txt'

tempFile = open( fileToSearch, 'r+' )

for line in fileinput.input( fileToSearch ):
    if textToSearch in line :
        print('Match Found')
    else:
        print('Match Not Found!!')
    tempFile.write( line.replace( textToSearch, textToReplace ) )
tempFile.close()


input( '\n\n Press Enter to exit...' )

Input file:

hi this is abcd hi this is abcd
This is dummy text file.
This is how search and replace works abcd

When I search and replace ‘ram’ by ‘abcd’ in above input file, it works as a charm. But when I do it vice-versa i.e. replacing ‘abcd’ by ‘ram’, some junk characters are left at the end.

Replacing ‘abcd’ by ‘ram’

hi this is ram hi this is ram
This is dummy text file.
This is how search and replace works rambcd

fileinput already supports inplace editing. It redirects stdout to the file in this case:

#!/usr/bin/env python3
import fileinput

with fileinput.FileInput(filename, inplace=True, backup='.bak') as file:
    for line in file:
        print(line.replace(text_to_search, replacement_text), end='')

As pointed out by michaelb958, you cannot replace in place with data of a different length because this will put the rest of the sections out of place. I disagree with the other posters suggesting you read from one file and write to another. Instead, I would read the file into memory, fix the data up, and then write it out to the same file in a separate step.

# Read in the file
with open('file.txt', 'r') as file :
  filedata = file.read()

# Replace the target string
filedata = filedata.replace('ram', 'abcd')

# Write the file out again
with open('file.txt', 'w') as file:
  file.write(filedata)

Unless you’ve got a massive file to work with which is too big to load into memory in one go, or you are concerned about potential data loss if the process is interrupted during the second step in which you write data to the file.

As Jack Aidley had posted and J.F. Sebastian pointed out, this code will not work:

 # Read in the file
filedata = None
with file = open('file.txt', 'r') :
  filedata = file.read()

# Replace the target string
filedata.replace('ram', 'abcd')

# Write the file out again
with file = open('file.txt', 'w') :
  file.write(filedata)`

But this code WILL work (I’ve tested it):

f = open(filein,'r')
filedata = f.read()
f.close()

newdata = filedata.replace("old data","new data")

f = open(fileout,'w')
f.write(newdata)
f.close()

Using this method, filein and fileout can be the same file, because Python 3.3 will overwrite the file upon opening for write.

You can do the replacement like this

f1 = open('file1.txt', 'r')
f2 = open('file2.txt', 'w')
for line in f1:
    f2.write(line.replace('old_text', 'new_text'))
f1.close()
f2.close()

You can also use pathlib.

from pathlib2 import Path
path = Path(file_to_search)
text = path.read_text()
text = text.replace(text_to_search, replacement_text)
path.write_text(text)

With a single with block, you can search and replace your text:

with open('file.txt','r+') as f:
    filedata = f.read()
    filedata = filedata.replace('abc','xyz')
    f.truncate(0)
    f.write(filedata)

Your problem stems from reading from and writing to the same file. Rather than opening fileToSearch for writing, open an actual temporary file and then after you’re done and have closed tempFile, use os.rename to move the new file over fileToSearch.

(pip install python-util)

from pyutil import filereplace

filereplace("somefile.txt","abcd","ram")

The second parameter (the thing to be replaced, e.g. “abcd” can also be a regex)
Will replace all occurences

My variant, one word at a time on the entire file.

I read it into memory.

def replace_word(infile,old_word,new_word):
    if not os.path.isfile(infile):
        print ("Error on replace_word, not a regular file: "+infile)
        sys.exit(1)

    f1=open(infile,'r').read()
    f2=open(infile,'w')
    m=f1.replace(old_word,new_word)
    f2.write(m)

I have done this:

#!/usr/bin/env python3

import fileinput
import os

Dir = input ("Source directory: ")
os.chdir(Dir)

Filelist = os.listdir()
print('File list: ',Filelist)

NomeFile = input ("Insert file name: ")

CarOr = input ("Text to search: ")

CarNew = input ("New text: ")

with fileinput.FileInput(NomeFile, inplace=True, backup='.bak') as file:
    for line in file:
        print(line.replace(CarOr, CarNew), end='')

file.close ()

I modified Jayram Singh’s post slightly in order to replace every instance of a ‘!’ character to a number which I wanted to increment with each instance. Thought it might be helpful to someone who wanted to modify a character that occurred more than once per line and wanted to iterate. Hope that helps someone. PS- I’m very new at coding so apologies if my post is inappropriate in any way, but this worked for me.

f1 = open('file1.txt', 'r')
f2 = open('file2.txt', 'w')
n = 1  

# if word=='!'replace w/ [n] & increment n; else append same word to     
# file2

for line in f1:
    for word in line:
        if word == '!':
            f2.write(word.replace('!', f'[{n}]'))
            n += 1
        else:
            f2.write(word)
f1.close()
f2.close()

def word_replace(filename,old,new):
    c=0
    with open(filename,'r+',encoding ='utf-8') as f:
        a=f.read()
        b=a.split()
        for i in range(0,len(b)):
            if b[i]==old:
                c=c+1
        old=old.center(len(old)+2)
        new=new.center(len(new)+2)
        d=a.replace(old,new,c)
        f.truncate(0)
        f.seek(0)
        f.write(d)
    print('All words have been replaced!!!')

Like so:

def find_and_replace(file, word, replacement):
  with open(file, 'r+') as f:
    text = f.read()
    f.write(text.replace(word, replacement))

def findReplace(find, replace):

    import os 

    src = os.path.join(os.getcwd(), os.pardir) 

    for path, dirs, files in os.walk(os.path.abspath(src)):

        for name in files: 

            if name.endswith('.py'): 

                filepath = os.path.join(path, name)

                with open(filepath) as f: 

                    s = f.read()

                s = s.replace(find, replace) 

                with open(filepath, "w") as f:

                    f.write(s)