two ideoms at one blow: line-reading and regexp-matching

[Terry Reedy]

"Russell Nelson" <nelson at crynwr.com> wrote in message
news:m2vgcs5hgf.fsf at desk.crynwr.com...
> There are two Python ideoms that bother me:
>
>     while 1:
>         line = file.readline()
>         if not line: break
>
> and:
>
>     matched = re.match(r'egexp(.*)', line)
>     if matched:
>         print matched.group(1)
>
> I'd really, really like it if you could do one(1) assignment within
> the boolean expression in a while and an if.  Like this:
>
>
>     while line = file.readline():
>
> and:
>
>     if matched = re.match(r'egexp(.*)', line):
>         print matched.group(1)
>
> I just think it would be easier to read programs if they could be
> written like this.  Should I write up a PEP or has this already been
> discussed and dismissed?

Both have been discussed (the former ad nauseum) and dismissed for at
least the present.  You could certainly find some thru groups.google.
Don't know if there is a PEP documenting any of the discussion.

Terry J. Reedy