4.8.
writeFile(): Assemble one output file
The input to this function is the name of an output file
to be written (fileName), and a
list of all the programlisting
nodes (nodeList) containing code
fragments destined for that output file. Its purpose is
to extract all the text from each node and write it to
the given file.
# - - - w r i t e F i l e - - -
def writeFile ( fileName, nodeList ):
"""Create a file from the text descendants of nodes in nodeList
[ (fileName is a string) and
(nodeList is a list of programlisting DOM Elements) ->
if fileName is writeable ->
file fileName := text descendants of node in document order
else ->
sys.stderr +:= error message ]
"""
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First, we try to create the file, reporting errors and
returning if that fails.
#-- 1 --
# [ if fileName can be created new ->
# outFile := fileName opened new
# else ->
# sys.stderr +:= error message
# return ]
try:
outFile = open ( fileName, 'w' )
except IOError, detail:
sys.stderr.write ( "*** Can't create file '%s': %s\n" %
(fileName, detail) )
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Next, we create an empty list that will contain strings
extracted from nodeList.
Then we pass each fragment's node to the findText()
function, which extracts the text and CDATA
elements from that node's descendants. The result of
that function is a string, which is appended to
contents.
#-- 3 --
# [ contents is a list ->
# contents +:= all text descendants of nodes in nodeList in
# document order ]
for node in nodeList:
#-- 2 body --
# [ node is a programlisting DOM element ->
# contents +:= all text descendants of node in
# document order ]
contents.append ( findText ( node ) )
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Finally, we use Python's
.writelines() function, which
conveniently accepts a list of strings, to write all the
strings in contents to the output
file, and close it.
#-- 4 --
# [ outFile +:= contents, concatenated ]
outFile.writelines ( contents )
outFile.close()
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