Python replace a line only if it meets a condition

Question

I am trying to search through a jsp file, see if it contains a certain tag, and replace an attribute on the same line if the tag exists on the same line.

For example <c:out var="taskToRedirect" property="dueDate"

I am trying to see if the line contains <c:out and if it does, I need to change the "property" attribute to "value", and only on that line, I don't want to change all of the "property" attributes in the entire file.

Currently what I have is:

f = open(filepath)
c = f.read()
for i in c:
    if ("<c:out" in i):
        c=c.replace(i,i.replace("property","value"))
 f.write(c)
 f.close()

The code appears to do nothing, and throws no run time errors, c is the string representation of the contents of a file, and i is the current line in the file. Any suggestions are welcome.

`c` is the contents of the file. i is an individual line in the file. — CS2016, Mar 10 '17 at 20:15

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Mar 10 '17 at 19:33

0

I don't see where you write the output. The file doesn't change unless you write out those changes. c is only your internal copy.

Have you traced whether c changes as expected? Have you tried this with a small file?

answered Mar 10 '17 at 19:33

Prune

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Python replace a line only if it meets a condition

1 Answers1