# File:    deSpacer1.py
# Author:  Dr. Gibson
# Date:    11/18/2017
# Section: N/A
# E-mail:  k.gibson@umbc.edu 
# Description:
#   This file contains python code that opens a file called "spaced.txt",
#   counts and removes all of the whitespace, prints out the count,
#   and saves the result to a file called "unspaced.txt"


def main():
    
    # open the file spaced.txt (for reading) and read in its contents
    inputFile = open("spaced.txt", "r")
    contents = inputFile.read()

    # done with the file, so we can close it now
    inputFile.close()

    # use split() to split on (and remove) whitespace characters
    # use join()  to re-create a string with no whitespace chars
    splitSpace = contents.split()
    unspacedContents = "".join(splitSpace)

    spaceLen   = len(contents)
    unspaceLen = len(unspacedContents)
    spaceChars = spaceLen - unspaceLen

    # print out total count
    print("There were", spaceChars, "spacing characters in the file")

    # write to a new file unspaced.txt (open for writing)
    outputFile = open("unspaced.txt", "w")
    outputFile.write(unspacedContents)

    # close the ouptut file
    outputFile.close()

main()