Creating a directory structure and modifying files automatically in Python

[Javier]

>    Learn how to use a database.  Creating and managing a
> big collection of directories to handle small data items is the
> wrong approach to data storage.
>                                
>                                John Nagle

Or not... Using directories may be a way to do rapid prototyping, and
check quickly how things are going internally, without needing to resort
to complex database interfaces.

Just a quote from the history of usenet:

       I wrote the very first version of
       netnews as a 150-line shellscript. It
       had multiple newsgroups and
       cross-posting; newsgroups were
       directories and cross-posting was
       implemented as multiple links to the
       article. It was far too slow to use
       for production, but the flexibility
       permitted endless experimentation with
       the protocol design.
                       -- Steven M. Bellovin

http://www.linuxtopia.org/online_books/programming_books/art_of_unix_programming/ch14s04_2.html

for the question of the OP:

import string
import os
namefile="..."
for line in open("foobar").readlines()
   dirname,number=string.split(line)
   os.system("mkdir "+dirname)
   f=open(dirname+"/"+namefile,"w")
   f.write("TEXT..."+number)
   f.close()

Portability can be improved by using os.path or something like that.




John Nagle <nagle at animats.com> wrote:
> On 4/30/2012 8:19 AM, deltaquattro at gmail.com wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> I would like to automate the following task under Linux. I need to create a set of directories such as
>>
>> 075
>> 095
>> 100
>> 125
>>
>> The directory names may be read from a text file foobar, which also contains a number corresponding to each dir, like this:
>>
>> 075 1.818
>> 095 2.181
>> 100 2.579
>> 125 3.019
>>
>>
>> In each directory I must copy a text file input.in. This file contains  two lines which need to be edited:
>