On Jul 11, 1:28 pm, Steven D'Aprano <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Wed, 11 Jul 2007 01:06:04 +0000, rvr wrote: > > Is there a way to edit the file in place? The best I seem to be able to > > do is to use your second solution to read the file into the string, then > > re-open the file for writing and put the whole thing back (minus the > > first byte). Thanks. > > I don't believe that any of the popular operating systems in common use > (Windows, Linux, Mac, *BSD) have any such functionality. > > For safety, you are best off copying the file (minus the first byte) to a > temporary file, then renaming the copy over the original. That way if > your process dies midway through copying the file, you don't lose data. > > Renaming the file is atomic under Linux and (probably) Mac, so it is as > safe as possible. Even under Windows, which isn't atomic, it has a > smaller margin for disaster than over-writing the file in place.
Thanks for your response. While searching for solution, I found this: http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-list/2001-December/116519.html Quoting from it: """ Replace 2 bytes in place beginning at offset 100 (101st byte): f = open('text_input', 'r+b') f.seek(100) f.write(chr(123) + chr(0x80)) f.seek(0,2) f.close() """ Can I use the seek() and write() methods in a similar way to remove the first byte? For whatever reason I can't seem to make it work myself. Thanks again. ~rvr -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
