Read and write files

Question

I have a text file, its content is(for example):

 388, 399, 100 
*Nset, nset=All, internal, generate
  1,  48,  1
*Elset, elset=All, internal, generate
  1,  35,   1
** Section:solidplane
*Solid Section, elset=All, material="rigid body"
*End Instance

Now I want use Mathematica read the above content and modify it; for example,

(1) I want the number "48 (3rd line)" to change to number"388 (1st line)",

(2) I want the word "All (4th line)" to change to word "Whole",

How can I realize it?

So the output is:

 388, 399, 100
*Nset, nset=All, internal, generate
  1,  388,   1
*Elset, elset=Whole, internal, generate
  1,  35,   1
** Section:solidplane
*Solid Section, elset=All, material="rigid body"
*End Instance

I have used the function "ReadList" but failed... Hope someone can help me

Answer 1

Here my proposition

Maybe the best format in this case is "CSV" (also "Table" would be interesting )

You'll have to customize myPath and "material.txt"

myPath = NotebookDirectory[];
file = ToFileName[myPath, "material.txt"]
f = Import[file, "CSV"]

once the file is loaded, it appears without quotes in Mma (I saved it previously in the actual directory for this example) you may get

{{388, 399, 100}, {"*Nset", " nset=All", " internal", 
  " generate"}, {1, 48, 1}, {"*Elset", " elset=All", " internal", 
  " generate"}, {1, 35, 
  1}, {"** Section:solidplane"}, {"*Solid Section", " elset=All", 
  " material=\"rigid body\""}, {"*End Instance"}}

you can access now e.g. 399 in line=1, item=2 (you don't have to write line or item, this is just for clear explanation)

f[[line = 1, item = 2]]

so doing your questions 1) and 2) with

f[[line = 3, item = 2]] = f[[line = 1, item = 1]]
f[[line = 4, item = 2]] = "elset=Whole"
f

and saving again your changes with

Export[file, f]

and reimport for verifying

Import[file, "CSV"]