Replace Tab with space in entire text file python

Question

I have a text file which contains TAB between values and looks like this:

Yellow_Hat_Person    293    997    328    1031
Yellow_Hat_Person    292    998    326    1032
Yellow_Hat_Person    290    997    324    1030
Yellow_Hat_Person    288    997    321    1028
Yellow_Hat_Person    286    995    319    1026

I want to replace all the tabs with just a single space. so it looks like this:

Yellow_Hat_Person 293 997 328 1031
Yellow_Hat_Person 292 998 326 1032
Yellow_Hat_Person 290 997 324 1030
Yellow_Hat_Person 288 997 321 1028
Yellow_Hat_Person 286 995 319 1026

Any suggestions would be of help.

I can but i am learning python and it is a requirement of the project that there should be no tabs or whitespaces etc — Shameendra
– Shameendra, Commented Feb 20, 2019 at 11:50
Okay, where are you at for this project... have you been able to read a tab delimited file in? — Jon Clements
– Jon Clements, Commented Feb 20, 2019 at 11:52
Do you mean can i read this file in python? Yes i can do that. But i can't figure out how to remove the TAB yet — Shameendra
– Shameendra, Commented Feb 20, 2019 at 11:54

mooga · Accepted Answer · 2019-02-20 12:35:28Z

10

You need to replace every '\t' to ' '

inputFile = open(“textfile.text”, “r”) 
exportFile = open(“textfile.txt”, “w”)
for line in inputFile:
   new_line = line.replace('\t', ' ')
   exportFile.write(new_line) 

inputFile.close()
exportFile.close()

edited Feb 20, 2019 at 12:35

answered Feb 20, 2019 at 11:40

mooga

3,3274 gold badges25 silver badges40 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

4 Comments

Jon Clements Over a year ago

any reason you're not using a with statement here for opening the files?

Shameendra Over a year ago

It doesn't seem to work. It copies the entire thing from input file and pastes into the output file

mooga Over a year ago

@Shameendra, I have updated the answer check it again

Shameendra Over a year ago

@mooga Works perfectly. Thanks a lot. However i would like to suggest putting the indent in the for loop so beginners don't make a mistake

ChrisZZ · Accepted Answer · 2020-06-04 05:23:58Z

1

It would be better to use correct quote chars, and don't make input & output file names very similar. Based on @mooga's answer, please use this:

fin = open("input.txt", "r") 
fout = open("output.txt", "w")
for line in fin:
   new_line = line.replace('\t', ' ')
   fout.write(new_line) 

fin.close()
fout.close()

answered Jun 4, 2020 at 5:23

ChrisZZ

2,2913 gold badges24 silver badges34 bronze badges

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

Replace Tab with space in entire text file python

2 Answers 2

4 Comments

Comments

Your Answer

Linked

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

2 Answers 2

4 Comments

Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Linked

Related