Finding errors in a file

I have a huge file whose contents are generated from running an executable over and over on different input files. The file's pattern is such: -file name followed by an arbitrary amount of text lines. I have to pick up the n开发者_运维技巧ame of the file when there is an error in reading input data and I am not sure what the best way to do it is. Another problem is that the word error comes up every time anyway in a phrase (Final fitting error was (some numerical value)) which needs to be ignored.

C:\temptest\blahblah1 
.. (arbitrary # of text lines)
Final fitting error : (some number) [I have to ignore this] 
C:\temptest\blahblah2
.. (arbitrary # of text lines)
Error could not read data !** [I have to pick up blahblah2 and copy the file to another directory, but just logging the name would suffice]

Thanks in advance !

This should do more or less what you need:

f = open("your_file.txt")
file_name = None
for line in f:
    if line.startswith(r"C:\"):
        file_name = line
    elif line.startswith("Error"):
        print "Error for file " + file_name

Assumptions:
  - File names will start with "C:\", if that isn't true use a regular expression to perform a more accurate match or insert a special character before new files as you mentioned in a comment.
  - There will only be one error per file, or printing multiple errors for a file is not a problem. If that is not the case, set some flag when you first print an error for a file and skip all subsequent errors until you find a new file.

So your log file looks like

{filepath}\file1
{
    multiple lines
}
Final fitting error : 3.2
{filepath}\file2
{
    multiple lines
}
Error could not read data !

and you want a list of all filenames resulting in the 'Error could not read data' message?

import re
import os.path

skipErrs = set("Final fitting error")
saveErrs = set("Error could not read data")
LOOKFOR = re.compile('(' + '|'.join(skipErrs) + '|' + '|'.join(saveErrs) + ')')

class EOF_Exception(Exception): pass
def getLine(f):
    t = f.readline()
    if t=='':
        raise EOF_Exception('found end of file')
    else:
        return t.strip()

def getFilePath(f):
    return os.path.normpath(getLine(f))

errorfiles = []
with open('logfile.txt') as inf:
    while True:
        try:
            filepath = getFilePath(inf)

            s = getLine(f)
            m = re.match(s)
            while not m:
                s = getLine(f)
                m = re.match(s)

            if m.group(1) in saveErrs:
                errorfiles.append(filepath)
        except EOF_Exception:
            break

With special being whatever header you want to append to the file lines:

[line[len(special):].strip() for line in file if line.startswith(special)]

You could use regexes also, but it will be more robust to add your own header, unless you are sure arbitrary lines could not start with a valid file name.

import shutil
f=open("file")
o=open("log","a")
for line in f:
    if line.lstrip().startswith("C:"):
        filename = line
    if "Error" in line or "error" in line:
        o.write( filename +"\n")
        shutil.move(line,another_directory)
f.close()
o.close()