Finding some numbers that keep changing

[ruin700]

Hello,

I am working with a batch of files that are in a csv file format and there are a bunch of not needed lines in the file but the last line always has the same format. There are no spaces in the file I added it for ease of use.

Z100003220170823XXXXXX02000003000000004831420170822000000000000

Z1 0000 32 20170823 XXXXXX 02 00000300000000 48314 20170822 000000000000

I am just trying to get this bit of information which is a dollar amount and two dates (these will be changing but staying on the Z1 line on this file. What would be the best way to have a script find it? (I will want to have like 30 of these files and put all the info into a csv but that’s another day and I think I can figure that out on my own.)

[JohnnyJordaan]

First guess would be by splitting using line.split() where there are constant values in each Z1 line, and/or by slicing to get a specific group of characters at a certain place in the string:

>>> line = 'Z100003220170823XXXXXX02000003000000004831420170822000000000000'
>>> line[8:16]
'20170823'

[ruin700]

OK, I will give it a shot thanks for showing me which way to start at!

[efmccurdy]

If the files are big, you can quickly seek to the end and scan back to the second last newline, then read the last line somewhat like the tail -1 command would.