How to write to a file in golang

Question

i am trying to write to to a file. i read the whole content of the file and now i want to change the content of the file based on some word that i have got from the file. but when i check, the content of the file, it is still the same and it has not change. this is what i used

if strings.Contains(string(read), sam) {
    fmt.Println("this file contain that word")
    temp := strings.ToUpper(sam)
    fmt.Println(temp)
    err := ioutil.WriteFile(fi.Name(), []byte(temp), 0644)
} else {
    fmt.Println(" the word is not in the file")
}

Answer 1

Considering that your call to ioutil.WriteFile() is consistent with what is used in "Go by Example: Writing Files", this should work.

But that Go by example article check the err just after the write call.

You check the err outside the scope of your test:

    if matched {
        read, err := ioutil.ReadFile(path)
        //fmt.Println(string(read))
        fmt.Println(" This is the name of the file", fi.Name())
        if strings.Contains(string(read), sam) {
            fmt.Println("this file contain that word")
            Value := strings.ToUpper(sam)
            fmt.Println(Value)
            err = ioutil.WriteFile(fi.Name(), []byte(Value), 0644)
        } else {
            fmt.Println(" the word is not in the file")
        }
        check(err)   <===== too late
    }

The err you are testing is the one you got when reading the file (ioutil.ReadFile), because of blocks and scope.

You need to check the error right after the Write call

            err = ioutil.WriteFile(fi.Name(), []byte(Value), 0644)
            check(err)   <===== too late

---

Since WriteFile overwrite the all file, you could strings.Replace() to replace your word by its upper case equivalent:

r := string(read)
r = strings.Replace(r, sam, strings.ToUpper(sam), -1)
err := ioutil.WriteFile(fi.Name(), []byte(r), 0644)

---

For a replace which is case insensitive, use a regexp as in "How do I do a case insensitive regular expression in Go?".
The, use func (*Regexp) ReplaceAllString:

re := regexp.MustCompile("(?i)\\b"+sam+"\\b")
r = re.ReplaceAllString(r, strings.ToUpper(sam))
err := ioutil.WriteFile(fi.Name(), []byte(r), 0644)

Note the \b: word boundary to find the any word starting and ending with sam content (instead of finding substrings containing sam content).
If you want to replace substrings, simply drop the \b:

re := regexp.MustCompile("(?i)"+sam)