import glob quit=1 o=open("deletescript","a") #output file handle #assume all your files in one directory and ext = .txt for files in glob.glob("*.txt"): for line in open(files): tablename = line.split()[0] o.write("delete from %s;\n" % tablename) o.write(".IF ERRORCODE <> 0 Then .QUIT %d\n"%quit) quit+=1 o.close() #close file handle