extracting substrings from a file

[Tim Chase]

> I have a file with several entries in the form:
> 
> AFFX-BioB-5_at	 E. coli  /GEN=bioB  /gb:J04423.1  NOTE=SIF
> corresponding to nucleotides 2032-2305 of /gb:J04423.1  DEF=E.coli
> 7,8-diamino-pelargonic acid (bioA), biotin synthetase (bioB),
> 7-keto-8-amino-pelargonic acid synthetase (bioF), bioC protein, and
> dethiobiotin synthetase (bioD), complete cds.
> 
> 1415785_a_at	 /gb:NM_009840.1 /DB_XREF=gi:6753327 /GEN=Cct8 /FEA=FLmRNA
> /CNT=482 /TID=Mm.17989.1 /TIER=FL+Stack /STK=281 /UG=Mm.17989 /LL=12469
> /DEF=Mus musculus chaperonin subunit 8 (theta) (Cct8), mRNA.
> /PROD=chaperonin subunit 8 (theta) /FL=/gb:NM_009840.1 /gb:BC009007.1
> 
> and I would like to create a file that has only the following:
> 
> AFFX-BioB-5_at  /GEN=bioB  /gb:J04423.1
> 
> 1415785_a_at	 /gb:NM_009840.1 /GEN=Cct8
> 
> Could anyone please tell me how can I do it?

The following seems to do it for me...

outfile = file('out.txt', 'w')
for line in file('in.txt'):
         if '/GEN' in line and '/gb:' in line:
                 newline = []
                 for index, item in enumerate(line.split()):
                         if index == 0 or item.startswith('/GEN') 
or item.startswith('/gb:'):
                                 newline.append(item)
                 outfile.write('\t'.join(newline))
                 outfile.write('\n')
outfile.close()


There are some underdefined conditions...I presume that both the 
GEN and gb: have to appear in the line.  If only one of them is 
required, change the "and" to an "or".

-tkc