Microbloggable.py

microbloggable.py

# microbloggable.py
# breaks a story up into notices or tweets 
# By Matt Katz: http://www.morelightmorelight.com
# this code is public domain but please 
# say hi: http://identi.ca/mattkatz

# open a file
text_in = 'c:/last-beautiful.txt'
output  = 'c:/twitterable.txt'
def process_story(file_in, file_out):
  fout = open(file_out, 'w')
  fin = open(file_in, 'r')
  fout.write("Notices|Length\n")
  # here is where the action begins
  for line in fin:
    if line[0]=="#":
      #let's skip those ### lines, even though they are nice
      continue
    while(len(line) > 1):
      end_of_notice = find_notice(line,fout)
      if end_of_notice <= 0:
	break
      line=line[end_of_notice+1:]
  fout.close()
  fin.close()

def min_unless_neg(a,b):
  if a <0:
    return b
  if b <0:
    return a
  return min(a,b)

def indices(text, list, reverse=False):
  if reverse :
    retlist = map(text.rfind,list)
  else:
    retlist = map(text.find, list)
  return retlist

def find_notice(line, fout):
  #count forward till you hit 140 characters, then back to a ! ? or .
  notice = line[:140]
  ends = ['!','?','.']
  end_of_notice = max(indices(notice, ends, reverse=True))
  # if we didn't find a sentence in there, we should just grab the first one we've got
  if (end_of_notice < 0 ):
    end_of_notice = reduce( min_unless_neg, indices(notice,ends))
  notice = line[:end_of_notice + 1 ]
  fout.write("%s|%d\n"%(notice,len(notice)))
  return end_of_notice

process_story(text_in,output)