Question

I am calling a function and need to loop through a range calling the function for each value in the range. The max value is returned by a different function (findPageCount()) than the one I am having a problem with.

For MakeRequest() I can run it with the values hard-coded and it works just fine. When I add the for loop in and pass the integer in to the two lines of the function, I the the error listed at the bottom. I think this is a small formatting difference but I have not had success in tracking it down so far.

The goal is to pass the i value in the for loop into the request in the xml string so the next page is shown and into the f = open statement so that a new file is created for that page.

I appreciate any help offered.

def MakeRequest(i):
  # some code to call api removed
  xml_string = "<list><FilterItems><FilterItem attribute='pageNumber' value='%d' /></FilterItems><SortItems><SortItem attribute ='activity_aud_mem_id' sortOrder='0'/></SortItems></list>"   % i

  f = open('/Users/output_test_%d.txt', 'w') % i
  for line in r:
      try:
          f.write('%s\n' % line)
      except UnicodeEncodeError:
          pass

  f.close()

max_page = findPageCount()

for i in range(0, max_page): 
  MakeRequest(i);  

I get the following error at the f = open line.

TypeError: "unsupported operand type(s) for %: 'file' and 'int'"

Answer 1

Use this:

f = open('/Users/output_test_%d.txt' % i, 'w')

The string formatter operator % works on the preceding string, so you have to put it directly behind it.

I would recommend to reformat the whole block like this:

with open('/Users/output_test_%d.txt' % i, 'w') as f:
    for line in r:
        try:
            f.write('%s\n' % line)
        except UnicodeEncodeError:
            pass

Then you need no f.close()