Stripping non-numbers from a file parse without nested lists?

[jay logan]

On Apr 1, 11:05 am, jay logan <dear.jay.lo... at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Apr 1, 2:35 am, daku9... at gmail.com wrote:
>
>
>
> > On Mar 31, 6:47 pm, "Rhodri James" <rho... at wildebst.demon.co.uk>
> > wrote:
>
> > > What you're doing (pace error checking) seems fine for the data
> > > structures that you're using.  I'm not entirely clear what your usage
> > > pattern for "dip" and "dir" is once you've got them, so I can't say
> > > whether there's a more appropriate shape for them.  I am a bit curious
> > > though as to why a nested list is non-ideal?
>
> > > ...
> > >      if "/" in word and "dip" not in word:
> > >         dip_n_dir.append(word.split("/", 1))
>
> > > is marginally shorter, and has the virtue of making it harder to use
> > > unrelated dip and dir values together.
>
> > > --
> > > Rhodri James *-* Wildebeeste Herder to the Masses
>
> > Rhodri,
>
> > Thanks.  That works better than what I had before and I learned a new
> > method of parsing what I was looking for.
>
> > Now I'm on to jumping a set number of lines from a given positive
> > search match:
>
> > ...(lines of garbage)...
> > 5656      (or some other value I want, but don't explicitly know)
> > ...(18 lines of garbage)...
> > search object
> > ...(lines of garbage)...
>
> > I've tried:
>
> > def read_poles(filename):
> >   index = 0
> >   fh = None
> >   try:
> >       fh = open(filename, "r")
> >       lines=fh.readlines()
> >       while True:
>
> >           if "search object" in lines[index]
> >               poles = int(lines[index-18])
> >               print(poles)
>
> >           index +=1
>
> >   except(IndexError): pass
>
> >   finally:
> >       if fh is not None: # close file
> >           fh.close()
>
> > ------------------
>
> > Which half works.  If it's not found, IndexError is caught and passed
> > (avoids quitting on lines[index out of range].  The print(poles)
> > properly displays the value I am looking for (_always_ 18 lines before
> > the search object).
>
> > However, since it is assigned using the index variable, the value of
> > poles doesn't keep (poles is always zero when referenced outside of
> > the read_poles function).  I'm assuming because I'm pointing to a
> > certain position of an object and once index moves on, it no longer
> > points to anything valid.  My python book suggested using
> > copy.deepcopy, but that didn't get around the fact I am calling it on
> > (index-18).
>
> > Any experience jumping back (or forward) a set number of lines once a
> > search object is found?  This is the only way I can think of doing it
> > and it clearly has some problems.
>
> > Reading the file line by line using for line in blah works for finding
> > the search object, but I can't see a way of going back the 18 lines to
> > grabbing what I need.
>
> > Thanks for the help!  I'm slowly getting this mangled mess of a file
> > into something automated (hand investigating the several thousand
> > files I need to do would be unpleasant).
>
> # You could try using a deque holding 18 lines and search using that
> deque
> # This is untested, but here's a try (>=Python 3.0)
> from collections import deque
> import itertools as it
> import sys
>
> def read_poles(filename):
>     with open(filename) as f:
>         line_iter = iter(f)
>         d = deque(it.islice(line_iter,17), maxlen=18)
>
>         for line in line_iter:
>             d.append(line)
>
>             if 'search object' in line:
>                 poles = int(d[0])
>                 print(poles)
>                 return poles
>         else:
>             print('No poles found in', filename, file=sys.err)

Notice that I returned the "pole" from the function so you could catch
the return value as follows:
pole = read_poles(filename)

if pole is None:
    # no poles found
else:
    print('Function returned this pole:', pole)

If you need a list of poles, then return a list:


def read_poles(filename):
    all_poles = []
    with open(filename) as f:
        line_iter = iter(f)
        d = deque(it.islice(line_iter,17), maxlen=18)

        for line in line_iter:
            d.append(line)

            if 'search object' in line:
                all_poles.append(int(d[0]))
    return all_poles


...
poles = read_poles(filename)

if poles:
    print('Here are the poles:\n', '\n'.join(map(str,poles)))
else:
    print('There were no poles found in', filename)