Matching a constant string at beginning

[Fred L. Drake, Jr.]

Hrvoje Niksic writes:
 > Very cool!

  And all thanks to that python-mode hacker, Barry Warsaw!

 > It's long bothered me that you can't check whether a string starts
 > with a phrase without either consing (s[:3] == 'foo') or resorting to
 > regexps (re.match('^foo', s)).

  What I've done occaisionally to avoid the magic number problem is
this:

	s1 = some string...
        s2 = "match this!"
        if s1[:len(s2)] == s2:
            # whatever...

  It's a little too idiomatic for me to really like it, but makes it
easier to keep track of.


  -Fred

--
Fred L. Drake, Jr.	  <fdrake at acm.org>
Corporation for National Research Initiatives