Search and replace a line in a file in Python

Question

I want to loop over the contents of a text file and do a search and replace on some lines and write the result back to the file. I could first load the whole file in memory

Answer 1

Based on the answer by Thomas Watnedal. However, this does not answer the line-to-line part of the original question exactly. The function can still replace on a line-to-line basis

This implementation replaces the file contents without using temporary files, as a consequence file permissions remain unchanged.

Also re.sub instead of replace, allows regex replacement instead of plain text replacement only.

Reading the file as a single string instead of line by line allows for multiline match and replacement.

import re

def replace(file, pattern, subst):
    # Read contents from file as a single string
    file_handle = open(file, 'r')
    file_string = file_handle.read()
    file_handle.close()

    # Use RE package to allow for replacement (also allowing for (multiline) REGEX)
    file_string = (re.sub(pattern, subst, file_string))

    # Write contents to file.
    # Using mode 'w' truncates the file.
    file_handle = open(file, 'w')
    file_handle.write(file_string)
    file_handle.close()