[Discuss] A question for the Python gurus

[Deryk Barker]

Adam Parkin wrote:
..........

> Well, the actual problem I was working on that lead me to ask was 
> reading from stdin.  I just think this code looks wrong/ugly to me:
>
> while (1):
>     line = sys.stdin.readline()
>     if (not line):
>         break
>
>     # now do something with line
>
> I'd rather have something that looked like:
>
> while (line = sys.stdin.readline())
>     # do something with line

Ah, I blame C for this.

the structurally correct way is:

line = sys.stdin.readline ()
while line:
    # do something with line
    line = sys.stdin.readline ()

it's what Michael Jackson (no, not that one) calls the read ahead and 
ensures that you only enter the loop body when there is indeed something 
to do.

It's only one line longer and will make the function call the same 
number of times, but it's clearer by far - clearer IMHO than the C-style 
while (line = ...) which I have never liked.