How to check for string in online text file in Python

Question

How do I check for a string from an online text file? Right now, I am using urllib.request to read the data, but how would I check for a string from an online text file?

Asked By: Ayush Gundawar

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Source

Answer 1

I think that urllib perfectly matches your use case.

I do not understand why you opened the file when the text was already available in your variable, here’s a corrected version of your code, using an online txt file as per your request, available on www.w3.org website (you can clearly change the URL with whatever you prefer):

from urllib.request import urlopen

textpage = urlopen("https://www.w3.org/TR/PNG/iso_8859-1.txt")
text = str(textpage.read(), 'utf-8')

# Conditions
while True:
    check_input = str(input("What do you want to search? "))
    if check_input == "":  # if no value is entered for the string
        continue
    if check_input in text:  # string in present in the text file
        print("Matched")
        break
    else:  # string is absent in the text file
        print("No such string found, try again")
        continue

Output

What do you want to search? something
No such string found, try again
What do you want to search? SPACE
Matched

You can also use the requests library, here’s a another example:

#!/usr/bin/env python3

import requests as req

resp = req.get("https://www.w3.org/TR/PNG/iso_8859-1.txt")
text = resp.text

# Conditions
while True:
    check_input = str(input("What do you want to search? "))
    if check_input == "":  # if no value is entered for the string
        continue
    if check_input in text:  # string in present in the text file
        print("Matched")
        break
    else:  # string is absent in the text file
        print("No such string found, try again")
        continue

Output

What do you want to search? something
No such string found, try again
What do you want to search? SPACE
Matched

Answered By: Pitto

How to check for string in online text file in Python

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