Using Python and os.walk to find targets

Question

I am currently working on a script to sift through filesystems (both Linux and Windows), to search for specific strings in text files. With what I have below I can select where I want to start, get the full paths to the files with the extensions I want, but the stringstofind does not seem to iterate correctly. I will eventually make this to where I can select the file extensions to search, and enter what strings I am looking for, but for now, I just need this to work so I can understand what I am doing wrong. Thanks in advance!

so far I have:

import os

userinput = input("What directory to search?")
stringstofind = ["String1", "String2", "String3"]
for roots,subdir, files in os.walk(userinput):
   for fname in files:
      #I know this if line is ugly, but like with stringstofind I had a hard 
      #time getting it to iterate through right.
      if ".txt" in fname or ".rtf" in fname or ".doc" in fname:
         filepath = os.path.join(roots,fname)
         with open(filepath, 'r') as f:
            for lines in f:
               if stringstofind in lines:
                  print("found target")

This actually should produce an **error**, and if so, then you should [edit] your question so that it contains the actual error message in it. — Antti Haapala -- Слава Україні, Dec 18 '18 at 05:29

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Dec 18 '18 at 05:21

I think it's just a bit of a type mismatch:

every lines variable produced by for lines in f: loop is actually a string
stringstofind is defined as a list

You are trying to do if stringstofind in lines: checking if a list of strings is inside a string.

What you probably meant was to check if any of the strings defined in the stringstofind list is a part of a line. You could use any() for that:

for line in f:
   if any(item in line for item in stringstofind):
      print("found target")

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 18 '18 at 05:23

0

instead of

if stringstofind in lines:
    print("found target")

use:

for string in stringstofind:
    if string in lines:
        print("found target")

answered Dec 18 '18 at 05:23

Amit Nanaware

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Using Python and os.walk to find targets

2 Answers2