(slightly OT): Python and linux - very cool

[Mart van de Wege]

On Thu, 08 Aug 2002 19:41:02 +0200, Just wrote:

> In article <o58uia-q8q.ln at drebbelstraat20.dyndns.org>,
>  Mart van de Wege <mvdwege.usenet at drebbelstraat20.dyndns.org> wrote:
> 
>> For example, this is what I recently did to extract all IPs from my
>> access.log:
>> 
>> ----- BEGIN SCRIPT -----
>> #!/usr/bin/perl
>> 
>> use warnings; # Make Perl picky about syntax.
>> use strict; # Make Perl *really* picky.
>> 
>> my @iplist; # Declare an array to hold all IP addresses.
>> 
>> open (FILE, '/var/log/apache/access.log');
>> 
>> while (<FILE>) {
>> 	/^(\d+\.\d+\.\d+\.\d+)?/;
>> 	next unless $1; # Skip if the first field is somehow empty.
>> 	next if $1 eq '127.0.0.1'; # Skip localhost.
>> 	push @iplist, $1;
>> }
>> # @iplist now holds all IPs in the first field of access.log.
>> 
>> ----- END SCRIPT -----
>> 
>> Python can do this too of course, but somehow this is the sort of task
>> that comes naturally to me in Perl. Note the use of the regexp:
>> 
>> 1. I don't have to explicitly declare and compile it.
>> 2. It operates on the default input variable ($_), so I don't have to
>> specify its target, I just use a bare regexp.
> 
> 
> import re
> 
> iplist = []
> 
> for line in open("/var/log/httpd/access_log"):
>    m = re.match(r"^(\d+\.\d+\.\d+\.\d+)", line)
>    if m:
>       ip = m.group(1)
>       if ip != "127.0.0.1":
>          iplist.append(ip)
> 
> 
> I don't thinkthat's significantly worse (or better...) than the Perl 
> version?

It isn't. Not at all.

I just like the way it's done in Perl better. <shrug>

Just a matter of taste I guess. You did miss one Perl advantage though:
the default variable. A lot of Perl operators can take that as input, and
it *can* make code cleaner and easier to write by eliminating temporary
variables (like 'line' in your example).

But again, it's a matter of taste. I like doing Gtk front-ends to my
scripts a lot better in Python, just as I like filtering files better in
Perl.

Mart

-- 
"Time expands and then contracts
When you're spinning in the grip of someone
Who is not an ordinary girl"
	Counting Crows - Hard Candy