Find the first element that meets the condition

[jm.suresh@no.spam.gmail.com]

Hi,
I have a list and I want to find the first element that meets a
condition. I do not want to use 'filter', because I want to come out
of the iteration as soon as the first element is found.
I have implemented it this way, may be, there should be a built in
hiding somewhere in the standard libraries?

def exists(iterable, condition):
    '''
    Return the first element in iterble that meets the condition.
    '''
    for x in iterable:
        if condition(x):
            return x
    raise Exception('No element meets the given condition.')



>>> exists(xrange(1000), lambda x: x>13)
14

-
Suresh