[Tutor] iterate problem

[Daniel Yoo]

On Sun, 16 Jul 2000, David Jansen wrote:

> a number of times). Removing the first > from the beginning of a line is no
> problem but I seem to enter an endless loop when I attempt to iterate over
> the line to get rid of second and third >'s if they exist.  The problem line
> is obviously the while line in strip() but I can't figure out what is wrong
> with it.

Ah!  You're not going to like this one: it's the spaces in your test file.  
For example, take a look at what happens in this line:

> > >The citrus soda 7-UP was created in 1929; "7" was selected because the

If you look at your terminating condition:

> ____while (len(input) > 0) and (input[0] not in alphas):

you'll see that after your loop cuts off the first '>' character, 'input'
gets stuck with a leading space in front.  After that, the loop goes
infinite since ' ' isn't alphanumeric, and nothing in the body's loop
deals with it.


###
def spoiler_alert:
   """By the way, a simpler way to state your condition and avoid the
      infinite loop is:"""

    while (len(input) > 0) and (input[0] == '<'):
      input = input[1:]