perl chomp equivalent in python?

[Alex]

> It'd be kinda cool if readlines() could take an argument that meant to
> strip away any trailing whitespace.

Hi, Will.

Below are some classes I often use for that sort of thing.

Alex.

class lazy_file:
  
  def __init__ (self,filename, print_count_period=None,
                sizehint=10**7, mode='r', open=open):
    self.file = open (filename, mode)
    self.line_count=0
    self.sizehint = sizehint
    self.print_count_period = print_count_period
    self.buffer = None
    
  def readline (self):
    
    if not self.buffer:
      self.buffer = self.file.readlines (self.sizehint)

    if not self.buffer:
      self.line = ''
    else:
      self.line = self.buffer.pop (0)
      if self.line [-1] == '\n':
        self.line = self.line [: -1]

      if self.print_count_period and \
         not (self.line_count % self.print_count_period):
        print self.line_count
      self.line_count=self.line_count+1

    return self.line
  

class File_loop:
  
  def __init__ (self, filename, print_count_period=None,
                sizehint=10**7, mode='r', open=open):
    
    self.file = lazy_file(filename, print_count_period,
                          sizehint, mode, open)
    
  def __getitem__(self,index):
    
    if self.file.readline():
      return self.file.line
    else:
      raise IndexError, 'File finished'

if __name__ == '__main__':
  
  f = File_loop ('/data/databases/gbpri/introns.txt')
  for l in f: 
    print l[-10:]