python - How to extract information between two unique words in a large text file

Question

I have about 150 text files filled with character information. Each file contains two unique words ()alpha and bravo and i want to extract the text between these unique words and write it to a different file.

Manually i can CTRL+F for the two words and copy the text between, i just want to know how to do this using a program (preferably Python) for many files.

Answer 1

You can use regular expressions for that.

>>> st = "alpha here is my text bravo"
>>> import re
>>> re.findall(r'alpha(.*?)bravo',st)
[' here is my text ']

My test.txt file

alpha here is my line
yipee
bravo

Now using open to read the file and than applying regular expressions.

>>> f = open('test.txt','r')
>>> data = f.read()
>>> x = re.findall(r'alpha(.*?)bravo',data,re.DOTALL)
>>> x
[' here is my line
yipee
']
>>> "".join(x).replace('
',' ')
' here is my line yipee '
>>>