Books Database

[Alex Martelli]

On Friday 07 March 2003 02:09 pm, Eliran Gonen wrote:
> Alex Martelli <aleaxit at yahoo.com>:
> >     thefile = open('X','r+')
> >     lines = thefile.readlines()
> >     del lines[X]
> >     thefile.seek(0)
> >     thefile.writelines(lines)
> >     thefile.close()
>
> The code is:
>
> infile = open(database, 'r+')
> lines = infile.readlines()
> del lines[0]
> infile.seek(0)
> infile.writelines(lines)
> infile.close()
>
> Now the database is like that :
>
> sample|none|1924|nobody
> stuff|two|1934|tree
>
> Now executing the above code results in:
>
> stuff|two|1934|tree
> ody
> stuff|two|1934|tree
>
> Bizarre.

Ah, yes, sorry -- you need to add a call to thefile.truncate() right before
you close the file, to ensure the file on disk reflects any shortening that
may have happened since the last write.


Alex