>
> Is there any way in python to check if a text file is blank?
>
> What I've tried to do so far is:
>
> f = file("friends.txt", "w")
> if f.read() is True:
> """do stuff"""
> else:
> """do other stuff"""
> f.close()
>
> What I *mean* to do in the second line is to check if the text file is
> not-blank. But apparently that's not the way to do it.
>
> Could someone set me straight please?
You're opening your file in write mode, so it gets truncated. Add "+"
to your open mode (r+ or w+) if you want to read and write.
Here is the file docstring:
file(name[, mode[, buffering]]) -> file object
Open a file. The mode can be 'r', 'w' or 'a' for reading (default),
writing or appending. The file will be created if it doesn't exist
when opened for writing or appending; it will be truncated when
opened for writing. Add a 'b' to the mode for binary files.
Add a '+' to the mode to allow simultaneous reading and writing.
If the buffering argument is given, 0 means unbuffered, 1 means line
buffered, and larger numbers specify the buffer size.
Add a 'U' to mode to open the file for input with universal newline
support. Any line ending in the input file will be seen as a '\n'
in Python. Also, a file so opened gains the attribute 'newlines';
the value for this attribute is one of None (no newline read yet),
'\r', '\n', '\r\n' or a tuple containing all the newline types seen.
'U' cannot be combined with 'w' or '+' mode.
Note: open() is an alias for file().
Also, comparison of a value with True is redundant in an if statement.
Rather use 'if f.read():'
David.
--
http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
