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up vote 4 down vote favorite

I want to delete everything from my html file and add <!DOCTYPE html><html><body>.

Here is my code so far:

with open('table.html', 'w'): pass
table_file = open('table.html', 'w')
table_file.write('<!DOCTYPE html><html><body>')

After i run my code, table.html is now empty. Why?

How can I fix that?

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2  
You are missing the point of the with block... –  Matteo Italia Sep 30 '13 at 11:09
 
with open('table.html', 'w'): pass ; deletes everything from my file –  Michael Vayvala Sep 30 '13 at 11:13
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3 Answers

up vote 7 down vote accepted

It looks like you're not closing the file and the first line is doing nothing, so you could do 2 things.

Either skip the first line and close the file in the end:

table_file = open('table.html', 'w')
table_file.write('<!DOCTYPE html><html><body>')
table_file.close()

or if you want to use the with statement do it like this:

with open('table.html', 'w') as table_file:
  table_file.write('<!DOCTYPE html><html><body>')
  # Write anything else you need here...
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4  
You don't need table_file.close() with the with statement –  mavroprovato Sep 30 '13 at 11:08
 
Thanks re provato.. ;) –  Lipis Sep 30 '13 at 12:28
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up vote 4 down vote 
with open('table.html', 'w'): pass 
   table_file = open('table.html', 'w')
   table_file.write('<!DOCTYPE html><html><body>')

This would open the file table.html two time's and your not closing your file properly too.

If your using with then :

with open('table.html', 'w') as table_file: 
   table_file.write('<!DOCTYPE html><html><body>')

with closes the file automatically after the scope.

Else you have to manually close the file like this:

table_file = open('table.html', 'w')
table_file.write('<!DOCTYPE html><html><body>')
table_file.close()

and you don't have to use the with operator.

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up vote 1 down vote

I'm not sure what you're trying to achieve with the with open('table.html', 'w'): pass. Try the following.

with open('table.html', 'w') as table_file:
    table_file.write('<!DOCTYPE html><html><body>')

You're currently not closing the file, so the changes aren't being written to disk.

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with open('table.html', 'w'): pass ; deletes everything from my file –  Michael Vayvala Sep 30 '13 at 11:00
 
But why? You're doing the same one line after that. –  Matthias Sep 30 '13 at 11:19
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