Replaces punctuation with tags

punct.py

#!/usr/bin/python

import codecs
import os
import re
import unicodedata

# Loads a UTF-8 text file into memory as a character string
def readDoc(filename):
	file = codecs.open(filename, "r", "UTF-8")
	string = file.read()
	file.close()
	return string

# Writes a character string (doc) as a UTF-8 text file
def writeDoc(doc):
	newfile = codecs.open("newfile.txt", "w", "UTF-8")
	newfile.write(doc)
	newfile.close()
	
# Gets the character's Unicode category and its name. Returns a tuple containing these two values.
def getCharName(char):
	category = unicodedata.category(char)
	name = unicodedata.name(char)
	values = (category, name)
	return values

# Finds text elements in the document and replaces all punctuation characters with a tag containing
# their names, at string level
def handleText(doc):
	oldString = doc
	newString = ""
	for char in oldString:
		category = unicodedata.category(char)
		if re.match("[PS][cdefimkos]*", category):
			char = "<" + unicodedata.name(char) + ">"
			
		newString += char
	
	return newString
		
doc = readDoc("text.txt")
doc = handleText(doc)
writeDoc(doc)