Typing in File Path in GUI and Using it to Run a Program Within Same GUI

Question

I am trying to input a file path in a line edit box within a PyQt GUI and then perform functions on that file. I'm hoping this can be done all within the same GUI. Is this even possible?

Answer 1

Sure, you can do it within the same GUI. If you want to prevent user from clicking the pbutton1 buton before loading the file you can set its attribute disabled to True and enable the button after the file is loaded (for example when calling button2Pressed function). I don't see any file loading instruction in your code, so the first thing to do for you will be saving the file content in your object, so in your button2Pressed you need something like:

with open(self.lineedit1.text(), 'r') as my_file:
    self.file_content = my_file.readlines()

Now when you have your file loaded you need to count the words. readlines splits the file into separate lines so you will also have to perform a loop to count all the words, so in button1Pressed you can write for example:

self.word_counter = 0
for line in self.file_content:
    for word in line.split(' ')
        if word == self.lineedit2.text():
            counter +=1

Note that the above code only splits your lines into words on a whitespace (' '). If you want commas and other symbols to be removed consider using regex. I hope this will give you an idea. Cheers!

Answer 2

You code needs some rearrangement to work properly. The main thing to think about is dividing the job up into parts, with each part doing one thing. So one method reads the file, one counts the words, one outputs the results, etc.

Here is a basic re-write of your example with some comments where changes have been made:

import sys, os, string
from PyQt4.QtCore import *
from PyQt4.QtGui import *

# move wordcount function into the class

class Form( QDialog):

    def __init__(self, parent=None):
        super(Form, self).__init__(parent)
        self.setWindowTitle("Word Count GUI")
        # use placeholder text
        self.lineedit2 = QLineEdit()
        self.lineedit2.setPlaceholderText('Enter Filename Here')
        self.pbutton2 = QPushButton('Press to Load File')
        # use placeholder text
        self.lineedit1 = QLineEdit()
        self.lineedit1.setPlaceholderText("Enter Word Here")
        self.pbutton1 = QPushButton("Press for Count")
        self.pbuttonQuit = QPushButton("Exit")
        # don't forget the layout...
        layout = QVBoxLayout()
        layout.addWidget(self.lineedit2)
        layout.addWidget(self.pbutton2)
        layout.addWidget(self.lineedit1)
        layout.addWidget(self.pbutton1)
        layout.addWidget(self.pbuttonQuit)
        self.setLayout(layout)
        self.pbutton2.setFocus()
        # use new-style connections
        self.pbutton1.clicked.connect(self.button1Pressed)
        self.pbutton2.clicked.connect(self.button2Pressed)
        # connect to self.close to quit
        self.pbuttonQuit.clicked.connect(self.close)
        # keep a list of lines
        self.lines = []

    def wordcount(self, word):
        total = 0
        # iterate over stored lines
        for line in self.lines:
            line = line.translate(None, string.punctuation)
            line = line.lower()
            words = line.split()
            if word in words:
                total += 1
        return total

    def button1Pressed(self):
        x1 = self.lineedit1.text()
        x1 = str(x1).lower()
        # use the wordcount method
        x2 = self.wordcount(x1)
        outtext =  str(x1) + " appears " + str(x2) + " times in the file."
        self.lineedit1.setText(outtext)

    def button2Pressed(self):
        # this reads the file and stores the lines
        g = str(self.lineedit2.text())
        g = os.path.join('/Users/xxx/Documents/Python', g)
        try:
            with open(g) as stream:
                self.lines = stream.readlines()
        except EnvironmentError as exception:
            print('ERROR: could not read file:')
            print('  : %s' % exception)
            self.lines = []

app = QApplication(sys.argv)
form = Form()
form.show()
app.exec_()