Change characters inside a .txt file with script

Question

I have a text file:
3.4 - New York, United States

I need to create a script (preferably written in python) that can change the - (dash) character to a , (comma) character,

And then save the output as a .csv file

We're not going to write it for you. I will recommend the `csv` module, and make you aware of `str.replace('-', ',')` — Patrick Haugh, Oct 05 '16 at 15:29
@PatrickHaugh this is the error I get when I try to run it in a script I made: Traceback (most recent call last): File "convert.py", line 11, in str.replace('-', ',') TypeError: replace() takes at least 2 arguments (1 given) — Adam Eliezerov, Oct 05 '16 at 15:34
It looks like two arguments to me. Can you edit the question with your script? There's no way to get good formatting in comments — Patrick Haugh, Oct 05 '16 at 15:41
@PatrickHaugh OP literally ran `str.replace` (on the string class) not on some string instance. — tdelaney, Oct 05 '16 at 16:01

score 0 · Answer 1 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:06

0

Use the CSV module, here is a stackoverflow example, Writing List of Strings to Excel CSV File in Python. If you want to replace the "-" with a "," open the file and read the string, replace it with str.replace('-', ',') and write it back to the file. Here is an example.

import csv
file = open("file_in.txt",'r')
file_out = open("file_out.csv",'wb')
writer = csv.writer(file_out)
writer.writerow(" ".join(file.read().replace('-', ','))) # added join method. 
file.close(); file_out.close()

edited May 23 '17 at 12:06

Community

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answered Oct 05 '16 at 16:02

Preston Hager

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This is the file_out.csv file I get: `3,.,4, ,",", ,N,e,w, ,Y,o,r,k,",", ,U,n,i,t,e,d, ,S,t,a,t,e,s," " ` – Adam Eliezerov Oct 05 '16 at 16:34
Try now, I added a join method. This should fix the problem, although you might have to split the string by comma and do it by column. Did you look at the link on "Writing List of Strings to CSV in Python"? – Preston Hager Oct 10 '16 at 05:49

Change characters inside a .txt file with script

1 Answers1