Iterate through a single iterator from multiple places in a loop

[MRAB]

On 22/09/2010 00:10, python at bdurham.com wrote:
> Is there a pythonic way to loop through a single iterator from
 > multiple places in a loop?
>
> Here's pseudo code for what I would like to do:
>
> for char in some_long_string:
>     if char == some_char:
>         for char in some_long_string: <--- using same iterator as above
>             # continue to pull chars from some_long_string
>             # until some conditions are met
>
>     # repeat above pattern again several times in the loop,
>     # with iterator access potentially nested
>
> One solution might be to convert some_long_string into a generator
 > that pops of a single character at a time?
>
> Is there a simple way wrap a string as a generator or do I need to
 > create a custom function for this?

it = iter(some_long_string)
for char in it:
     if char == some_char:
         for char in it:
             # continue to pull chars from some_long_string
             # until some conditions are met

     # repeat above pattern again several times in the loop,
     # with iterator access potentially nested