f = open('some_file.txt','r')
line_num = 0
search_phrase = "the dog barked"
for line in f.readlines():
line_num += 1
if line.find(search_phrase) >= 0:
print line_num
EDIT 1.5 years later (after seeing it get another upvote): I'm leaving this as is; but if I was writing today would write something closer to Ash/suzanshakya's solution:
def line_num_for_phrase_in_file(phrase='the dog barked', filename='file.txt')
with open(filename,'r') as f:
for (i, line) in enumerate(f):
if phrase in line:
return i
return -1
with
to open files is the pythonic idiom -- it ensures the file will be properly closed when the block using the file ends. for line in f
is much better than for line in f.readlines()
. The former is pythonic (e.g., would work if f
is any generic iterable; not necessarily a file object that implements readlines
), and more efficient f.readlines()
creates an list with the entire file in memory and then iterates through it. * if search_phrase in line
is more pythonic than if line.find(search_phrase) >= 0
, as it doesn't require line
to implement find
, reads more easily to see what's intended, and isn't easily screwed up (e.g., if line.find(search_phrase)
and if line.find(search_phrase) > 0
both will not work for all cases as find returns the index of the first match or -1). enumerate
like for i, line in enumerate(f)
than to initialize line_num = 0
before the loop and then manually increment in the loop. (Though arguably, this is more difficult to read for people unfamiliar with enumerate
.)