Extract Values between two strings in a text file using python
Lets say I have a Text file with the below content
fdsjhgjhg
fdshkjhk
Start
Good Morning
Hello World
End
dashjkhjk
dsfjkhk
Now I need to write a Python code which will read the text file and copy the contents between Start and end to another file.
I wrote the following code.
inFile = open("data.txt")
outFile = open("result.txt", "w")
buffer = []
keepCurrentSet = True
for line in inFile:
buffer.append(line)
if line.startswith("Start"):
#---- starts a new data set
if keepCurrentSet:
outFile.write("".join(buffer))
#now reset our state
keepCurrentSet = False
buffer = []
elif line.startswith("End"):
keepCurrentSet = True
inFile.close()
outFile.close()
I'm not getting the desired output as expected I'm just getting Start What I want to get is all the lines between Start and End. Excluding Start & End.
Just in case you have multiple "Start"s and "End"s in your text file, this will import all the data together, excluding all the "Start"s and "End"s.
with open('path/to/input') as infile, open('path/to/output', 'w') as outfile:
copy = False
for line in infile:
if line.strip() == "Start":
copy = True
continue
elif line.strip() == "End":
copy = False
continue
elif copy:
outfile.write(line)
If the text files aren't necessarily large, you can get the whole content of the file then use regular expressions:
import re
with open('data.txt') as myfile:
content = myfile.read()
text = re.search(r'Start\n.*?End', content, re.DOTALL).group()
with open("result.txt", "w") as myfile2:
myfile2.write(text)