Extracting/finding strings from a list

[Steve]

Hi,

I have a very long string, someting like:

         DISPLAY=localhost:0.0,FORT_BUFFERED=true,
 
F_ERROPT1=271\,271\,2\,1\,2\,2\,2\,2,G03BASIS=/opt/g03b05/g03/basis,
         GAMESS=/opt/gamess,GAUSS_ARCHDIR=/opt/g03b05/g03/arch,
 
GAUSS_EXEDIR=/opt/g03b05/g03/bsd:/opt/g03b05/g03/private:/opt/g03b05/g
         03,GAUSS_SCR_ROOT=/home/561/345561/scratch,
         GDVBASIS=/opt/g03b05/g03/basis,
         GMAIN=/opt/g03b05/g03/bsd:/opt/g03b05/g03/private:/opt/g03b05/g03,
         GROUP=e12,GV_DIR=/opt/g03b05/gv,HOST=sc1,
         HOSTTYPE=alpha,INFOPATH=/opt/info,KMP_DUPLICATE_LIB_OK=TRUE,
         KMP_STACKSIZE=10485760,
         LINDA_FORTRAN=f90 -i8 -r8 -omp -reentrancy threaded,
         LINDA_FORTRAN_LINK=f90 -i8 -r8 -omp -reentrancy threaded,
         LOGNAME=345561,MACHTYPE=alpha,MAIL=/var/spool/mail/345561,
 
MANPATH=/opt/g03b05/g03/bsd:/usr/share/man:/usr/dt/share/man:/usr/loca
 
l/man:/opt/man:/opt/pbs/man:/opt/rash/man:/usr/opt/mpi/man:/usr/opt/mpi
         /man:/usr/opt/mpi/man,MP_STACK_OVERFLOW=OFF,
         NLSPATH=/usr/lib/nls/msg/%L/%N,OMP_NUM_THREADS=4,ONEEXE=-DONEEXE,
         OSTYPE=osf1,
 
PERLLIB=/opt/g03b05/g03/bsd,PGI=/usr/pgi,PGIDIR=/usr/pgi/linux86/5.0,
         POSTFL_FORTRAN=f90 -i8 -r8 -omp -reentrancy threaded,PROJECT=e12,
         QCAUX=/opt/qchem-2.02/aux,QCPLATFORM=DEC_ALPHA,
         RMS_PROJECT=e12,RUNCPP=/lib/cpp,SHELL=/opt/rash/bin/tcsh,SHLVL=1,
         QUEUE=normal


and I need to extract the value of the variable "GAUSS_EXEDIR". Although 
these are environment variables, I don't have access to them directly. 
These variables are stored in a special file and I need to parse it to 
be able to extract the variable. I wrote the following code for this:

                 ...
                 data = {'gauss_var' : ''}
                 allLines = os.popen('cat ./somefile').readlines()
                 j = 0
                 # Extract GAUSS_EXEDIR from the string
                 gaussCont = 0
                 variable_list = value.split(",")
                 vars = variable_list[0].split("=")
                 while len(allLines) > j and vars[0] != "QUEUE":
                     var_line = allLines[j]
                     var_toks = split(var_line)
                     value = var_toks[0]
                     variable_list = value.split(",")
                     for k in range(len(pvariable_list)):
                         if variable_list[k].find("=") == -1:
                             if gaussCont == 1:
                                 data['guass_var']="%s%s" 
%(data['gauss_var'],variable_list[k])
                                 gaussCont = -1
                                 break
                             # end if
                         # end if

                         vars = variable_list[k].split("=")
                         for m in range(len(vars)):
                             if vars[m] == "GAUSS_EXEDIR":
                                 for p in range(1, len(vars)):
                                     data['gauss_var']="%s%s" % 
(data['gauss_var'], vars[p])
                                 # end for
                                 gaussCont = 1
                             # end if
                         # end for
                     # end for
                     j += 1
                     if gaussCont == -1:
                         break
                     # end if
                 # end while


The reason why I look for the word "QUEUE" is because "QUEUE" is the 
last variable expected in a list. After this line, the list continues 
but the variables belong to another use (so basically it's a big file 
full of env variables that belong to different users. Each list begins 
with "DISPLAY" and ends with "QUEUE").

Is there a much simpler way of doing this? That is, extracting/finding 
specific variables/value pairs from a list/string? These loops take up a 
lot of my time and I'm trying to learn better ways of doing the same. 
Thanks!


Steve