[Tutor] search through a list

[Brian van den Broek]

nephish said unto the world upon 02/07/2005 23:41:
> hey there
> i have a file that i want to read.
> each line in the file is the name of a file.
> the next line is how many lines are in that file.
> 
> example of loglist.txt
> 
> log1.txt
> 232
> log2.txt
> 332
> log3.txt
> 223
> 
> so log1 is a text file that has 232 lines in it.
> 
> ok, so what i want to do is read this file, see if the file i am looking 
> for is in it
> and if so, i need to know how many lines are in the file.
> 
> here is what i have so far.
> 
> import os
> 
> #get a list of Logs in logs folder
> LogFiles = os.listdir('/home/nephish/Projects/Piv_GCI/logs')
> 
> #open the loglist file and read the lines
> LogList = open('home/nephish/Projects/Piv/logs/LogList.txt', 'r')
> LogsRead = LogList.readlines()
> 
> #see if there is  a new log file.
> for i in LogFiles:
>     if LogFiles[i] not in LogList:
>         #if there is a new log, open it and read the lines
>             StrName=(LogFiles[i])
>             NewLog = open('/home/nephish/Projects/Piv_CGI/logs'+StrName,'r')
>             NewLogRead=NewLog.readlines()
>             #print the lines (testing only)
>             for x in NewLogRead:
>                 print x
>                 print '\n'
>             print '\n' #end for loop
>         else: #if the log file is not new,    
> 
> um this is where i am stuck. i need search the LogList for the name of 
> the name of the file in LogFiles and get the line number back so i can 
> use it to compare with how many lines are in the log file so i can only 
> process the data in the new lines ...  does this make sense ?
> 
> i need to find the item in a list, and when found, return the next line.
> 
> any takers?
> 
> thanks
> _______________________________________________
> Tutor maillist  -  Tutor at python.org
> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor

It's late and I might not have completely understood the task. Warning 
given:

So, you have a list of strings, and each is a line from your text file 
described at the top, right?

If so, maybe this will meet your needs:

 >>> l_list = ['these are\n', 'just some lines\n', 'to test with\n', 
'nothing to see\n']
 >>> def line_finder(line_list, flag):
         flag = flag.strip()
         return_next = False
         for line in line_list:
             if return_next:
                 return line.strip()
             else:
                 if line.strip() == flag:
                     return_next = True

				
 >>> line_finder(l_list, 'just some lines')
'to test with'
 >>>

(If the line isn't found, the function returns None.)

HTH,

Brian vdB