extracting numbers from a file, excluding words

[Steve Horsley]

Kristina Kudriašova wrote:
> 1 Nov 2005 09:19:45 -0800, dawenliu at gmail.com <dawenliu at gmail.com>:
>> Hi, I have a file with this content:
>>
>> zzzz zzzzz zzz zzzzz
>> ...
>> xxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxx xxxxx 34.215
>> zzzzzzz zz zzzz
>> ...
>>
> 
> Hi,
> 
> I'd suggest doing this:
> 
> f = file('...')
> for line in f:
>     if 'xxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxx xxxxx' in line:
>         var = float(line[len('xxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxx xxxxx'):].strip())
> f.close()

I think I prefer "if line.startswith('xxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxx 
xxxxx'):" . Feels cleaner to me.

Steve