a possibly foolish question about slices

[Martin v. Loewis]

Andrew Koenig <ark at research.att.com> writes:

> Suppose x is a string or list, and I want to refer to
> a subsequence of x with length n starting at position p.
> under the assumption that this subsequence is entirely
  ... within the boundaries?

> To do so, I can use x[p:p+n] in all circumstances but one,
> namely when p < 0 and p == -n.  Is there a similarly concise
> expression that works even in this special case?

Perhaps not concise, but compact:

  x[p:p+n or sys.maxint]

Regards,
Martin