Open and preprocessing file in Python NLTK
Question: Im new to Python NLTK and really need your advise. I want to open my own txt
file and do some preprocessing like replacing words with its regex. I've tried
to do it as in NLTK 2.0 Cookbook

    
    
    import re
    replacement_patterns = [
            (r'won\'t', 'will not'),
            (r'can\'t', 'cannot'),
            (r'i\'m', 'i am'),
            (r'ain\'t', 'is not'),
            (r'(\w+)\'ll', '\g<1> will'),
            (r'(\w+)n\'t', '\g<1> not'),
            (r'(\w+)\'ve', '\g<1> have'),
            (r'(\w+t)\'s', '\g<1> is'),
            (r'(\w+)\'re', '\g<1> are'),
            (r'(\w+)\'d', '\g<1> would'),
    ]
    class RegexpReplacer(object):
        def __init__(self, patterns=replacement_patterns):
                    self.patterns = [(re.compile(regex), repl) for (regex, repl) in patterns]
    
        def replace(self, line):
                    s = line
    
                    for (pattern, repl) in self.patterns:
                            (s, count) = re.subn(pattern, repl, s)
    
                    return s
    

it works perfect but how can I use it with my txt file? I've tried to do my
own way but I think its wrong

    
    
        import nltk
    f=open("C:/nltk_data/file.txt", "rU")
    raw=f.readlines()
    from replacers import RegexpReplacer
    replacer=RegexpReplacer()
    replacer.replace(raw)
    

thx in advance!!!


Answer: I think you want to use the [read
method](http://docs.python.org/tutorial/inputoutput.html) to read all the file
contents into a string first.

