how to match a multiline section in a file and delete it using regex in Python?

Question

I have an INI file with sections mentioned within [ ] and variables in a key = value manner. In it, I have a section called [FILES] which only has some file (with .ini extension) paths mentioned under it without any key-value pair.

Using configpaser module of Python, I am not able to parse it because of that [FILES] section. Hence, I am trying to get rid of this section from the file by substituting it by blank.

The ini file looks as below, there may or may not be sections defined under [FILES]

[ABC]
p1 = 2 
p2 = 3

[DEF]
q1= 4
q2 = queue

[FILES]
$PWD/../log/inc1-ww.ini
inc2.ini
/home/user/inputs/inc_new.ini
[PQR]
x= xyz
y = 2

I am trying below code, however the section defined after [FILES] is also coming along, any help to correct the regex and delete it from the file will be great help:

import re 
txt = open('my.ini', "r")
data = txt.read()
txt.close()

regex = re.compile(r'^(\[FILES\])[\n\r]([$-_a-zA-Z0-9\/\.\n\r]+)', re.MULTILINE)
matches = [] 
for m in regex.finditer(data):
    matches.append(m.groups())

Thanks in advance!

You can set `allow_no_value=True` when you initialize a ConfigParser to be able to read sections such as that `FILES`. — AKX, Sep 20 '21 at 20:41
Try turning the file into a long file, using `''.join(lineArray)`, then include your custom delimiter in your regex — Adam Smooch, Sep 20 '21 at 20:42

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 20 '21 at 20:44

This is really not worth doing with a regexp; if you can't use ConfigParser even with allow_no_value, read the file and ignore all lines in the FILES section:

import io

data = io.StringIO("""
[ABC]
p1 = 2 
p2 = 3

[DEF]
q1= 4
q2 = queue

[FILES]
$PWD/../log/inc1-ww.ini
inc2.ini
/home/user/inputs/inc_new.ini
[PQR]
x= xyz
y = 2
""".strip()
)

current_section = None
for line in data:
    line = line.rstrip()
    if line.startswith("["):
        current_section = line.strip("[]")
    if current_section != "FILES":
        print(line)

This outputs

[ABC]      
p1 = 2     
p2 = 3     
           
[DEF]      
q1= 4      
q2 = queue 
           
[PQR]      
x= xyz     
y = 2

(You could write to a file or append to a list instead of print()ing the line.)

how to match a multiline section in a file and delete it using regex in Python?

1 Answers1