"for" with "else"?

[Alex Martelli]

Invalid User wrote:

> While trying to print a none empty list, I accidentaly put an "else"
> statement with a "for" instead of "if". Here is what I had:
> 
>    if ( len(mylist)> 0)  :
>      for x,y in mylist:
>        print x,y
>      else:
>        print "Empty list"
> 
> which was supposed to be:
> 
>    if ( len(mylist)> 0)  :
>      for x,y in mylist:
>        print x,y
>    else:
>      print "Empty list"
> 
> 
> Is this to be expected?

Sure.  The else branch is executed unless the for terminates
prematurely (via break, return or exception) -- just like the
else branch of a while loop.

Typical use case:

    for item in allitems:
        if fraboozable(item):
            print "first fraboozable item is", item
            break
    else:
        print "Sorry, no item is fraboozable"


Alex