Getting python to write to a file once per hour for 24 hours before creating a new file

Question

Here's the issue I'm having...I can get python to write a file once per hour for 24 hours, no problem. I can get python to write to a new file, again, no problem. But getting python to write to a file for 24 hours and then creating a new file to continue writing to is giving me problems.

The code I'm using to write for 24 is as follows (may be slightly ham-fisted);

    import time

    i = 1

    while (i <= 24):            

        time_stamp = time.strftime("%c")

        with open('/home/pi/comp.txt') as file_two:
            contents = file_two.read()
            with open("/home/pi/comp2.txt", "a", encoding='utf-8') as file_three:
                file_three.writelines(time_stamp + "\n")
                file_three.writelines(contents + "\n" + "\n")

        i += 1
        time.sleep(3600)

And the code I'm using to get it to write a new file is;

    while (i <= 24):
        file_names = "data_" + str(i) + ".txt"
        with open('/home/pi/comp.txt', 'r') as file_one:
            contents = file_one.readlines()
            with open(file_names, 'w', encoding='utf-8') as file_four:
                file_four.writelines(contents)
    i += 1

As I said, I haven't been able to get them to play nicely with each other. I've tried using a for loop for the second code to get it to use each name individually (eg "data_1.txt" for 24 hours, then "data_2.txt" for the next 24), but when I tried that, I got an IsADirectoryError from the compiler. I appreciate any help!

Answer 1

You should go with what you tried: using a for loop, to write to file1.txt for one day, then moving to file2.txt . Except that in your code, you are using the file open modes w , r , and a . These depend on the file existing first. If you want to create a file, use w+ , r+ , or a+ .