prevent blank lines while writing in txt-file (python & html form)

Question

Hi,
my python script receives some multiline text from a textarea-fild through the POST-method and writes it to an txt-file. With the following code a blank line is inserted after every input-line.
if request.method == 'POST':
new_txt = request.form['newtext']
try:
file = open('files/share.txt', 'w')
file.write(new_txt)
finally:
file.close()

I guess the incoming textarea-data has linebreak-characters like \n and the write-method adds an extra \n after it. I guess I could read and write the file line by line (with readline e.g.) and remove one \n with .rsplit('\n'). But isn't there a more easy way?

Answer 1

Did you try file.write(new_text.strip()) (or new_txt = request.form['newtext'].strip())?

Answer 2

Hm, maybe something like this?

new_txt = '''
This is a
multiline text
'''

parts = [p for p in new_txt.split('\n') if p != '']

print(' '.join(parts)) # output: This is a multiline text

This should delete all blank lines.

Or you could try something like this:

parts = [p for p in new_txt.split('\n')]

if parts[-1] == '':
parts = parts[:-1]

print(' '.join(parts))

This will only delete the last line in case it is blank.

Answer 3

@Anna Yes, but it doesn't solve the problem.

Answer 4

thanks, but that solution would not be easier than read/write the file line by line :D
I'm using this code now:

if request.method == 'POST':
new_txt = request.form['newtext']
txt2file = new_txt.split('\n')
try:
file = open('files/share.txt', 'w')
file.writelines(txt2file)
finally:
file.close()

*the new varible "txt2file" usally isn't necessary, but I need the original value from new_txt for an other reason.