What happens after return statement?

[Andreas Jung]

I just call that bad programming style.

-aj

--On Montag, 21. Oktober 2002 21:25 -0700 Tim Roberts <timr at probo.com> 
wrote:

> Andreas Jung <lists at andreas-jung.com> wrote:
>>
>> --On Montag, 21. Oktober 2002 03:41 +0000 Gustaf Liljegren
>> <gustafl at algonet.se> wrote:
>>
>>> I really ought to know better after 2 years with Python, but I became
>>> uncertain. Have a look, please:
>>>
>>># Return the contents of a file (strip DOCTYPE conditionally)
>>> def read_file(file, remove):
>>>   if sys.path.exists(file):
>>>     f = open(file, 'r')
>>>     if remove = 0: # Just read the file
>>>       return f.read()
>>>     else: # Read the file and remove any line starting with '<!DOCTYPE'
>>>       sum = ""
>>>       while 1:
>>>         line = f.readline()
>>>         if line = "": break
>>>         if line[:9] != '<!DOCTYPE':
>>>           sum = sum + line
>>>       return sum
>>>     f.close() # Is the file closed (in both cases) here?
>> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>>
>> Why should that work?
>
> Well, mostly because it DOES work.  In each case, the return statements
> cause the last reference to the file "f" points at to go away.  When that
> happens, the file itself will be closed automatically.
> --
> - Tim Roberts, timr at probo.com
>   Providenza & Boekelheide, Inc.
> --
> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list




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