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To: python-list@python.org
From: Terry Reedy <tjreedy@udel.edu>
Subject: Re: Python: Deleting specific words from a file.
Date: Fri, 09 Sep 2011 02:04:15 -0400
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Xref: x330-a1.tempe.blueboxinc.net comp.lang.python:13003

On 9/8/2011 9:09 PM, papu wrote:
> Hello, I have a data file (un-structed messy file) from which I have
> to scrub specific list of words (delete words).
>
> Here is what I am doing but with no result:
>
> infile = "messy_data_file.txt"
> outfile = "cleaned_file.txt"
>
> delete_list = ["word_1","word_2"....,"word_n"]
> new_file = []
> fin=open(infile,"")
> fout = open(outfile,"w+")
> for line in fin:
>      for word in delete_list:
>          line.replace(word, "")
>      fout.write(line)
> fin.close()
> fout.close()

If you have very many words (and you will need all possible forms of 
each word if you do exact matches), The following (untested and 
incomplete) should run faster.

delete_set = {"word_1","word_2"....,"word_n"}
...
for line in fin:
     for word in line.split()
         if word not in delete_set:
             fout.write(word) # also write space and nl.


Depending on what your file is like, you might be better with 
re.split('(\W+)', line). An example from the manual:
 >>> re.split('(\W+)', '...words, words...')
['', '...', 'words', ', ', 'words', '...', '']

so all non-word separator sequences are preserved and written back out 
(as they will not match delete set).

-- 
Terry Jan Reedy