How to find a file with specific content?

Question

I have file with this content:

Sent
Trash
Drafts
Junk

and I want to find and delete it with Python.

I know the loop to search files and open the file and I know how regular expressions work, but regex reads files line by line and I can't just search with the key words because there are many files that contain these words (like 'Send' ) and I want the exact content. What can I do?

I thought something like this:

with open(fullsourcefilename) as openfile:
   if openfile.read() == "Sent\nTrash\nDrafts\nJunk":

but it don't work.

Answer 1

Try a multiline regex:

import re

with open(fullsourcefilename) as openfile:
   if re.search(r'Sent\nTrash\nDrafts\nJunk\n', openfile.read(), re.MULTILINE):

This is not the most optimal check if you have large files, but works if all you need is a quick and dirty solution.