Searching and replacing specific string using Python

Question

I'm trying to write a python script that will search and replace specific string in text file

As an example foo.txt is like that:

[section1]
option1=xyz
option2=abc

[section2]
option1=aaa
option2=bbb

My objective is to replace only option1 and option2 values under section2 without changing anything in section1 as the following be:

[section1]
option1=xyz
option2=abc

[section2]
option1=xxx
option2=zzz

I have tried pysed and many other methods with no dice. Any help from Python Guru ?

Answer 1

You may find it easier to use ConfigParser instead of searching and replacing:

#!/usr/bin/python                                                               
import ConfigParser                                                             
import os                                                                       

config = ConfigParser.ConfigParser()
config.readfp(open('foo.txt'))
config.set("section2", "option1", "xxx1")
config.set("section2", "option2", "yyy1")
# It's always better to write to a temporary file
# and then atomically replace the original:
config.write(open('foo.txt.new', "w"))
os.rename('foo.txt.new', 'foo.txt')