replacing words in HTML file

[Cameron Simpson]

On 28Apr2010 22:03, Daniel Fetchinson <fetchinson at googlemail.com> wrote:
| > Any idea how I can replace words in a html file? Meaning only the
| > content will get replace while the html tags, javascript, & css are
| > remain untouch.
| 
| I'm not sure what you tried and what you haven't but as a first trial
| you might want to
| 
| <untested>
| 
| f = open( 'new.html', 'w' )
| f.write( open( 'index.html' ).read( ).replace( 'replace-this', 'with-that' ) )
| f.close( )
| 
| </untested>

If 'replace-this' occurs inside the javascript etc or happens to be an
HTML tag name, it will get mangled. The OP didn't want that.

The only way to get this right is to parse the file, then walk the doc
tree enditing only the text parts.

The BeautifulSoup module (3rd party, but a single .py file and trivial to
fetch and use, though it has some dependencies) does a good job of this,
coping even with typical not quite right HTML. It gives you a parse
tree you can easily walk, and you can modify it in place and write it
straight back out.

Cheers,
-- 
Cameron Simpson <cs at zip.com.au> DoD#743
http://www.cskk.ezoshosting.com/cs/

The Web site you seek
cannot be located but
endless others exist
- Haiku Error Messages http://www.salonmagazine.com/21st/chal/1998/02/10chal2.html