Iterating command switches from a data file - have a working solution but it seems inefficient

[Larry Bates]

News wrote:
> Hi everyone,
> 
> My goal is to pull command switches/options from a file and then assign
> the values to select variables which would eventually be included in a
> class object.
> 
> The data file looks something like this but the switches could be in any
> order and not all may be used.
> 
> -m quemanager -s server -p port -k key -o object -c 20 -t test at email.com
> 
> Also, please keep in mind that the source code will have more than one
> line in it and each has to be treaded separately.
> 
> 
> In a first pass, I wrote the following code which works but there is
> probably a better way of doing it.
> 
> Any ideas to make it more efficient/stream-lined would be greatly
> appreciated.
> 
> #!/usr/bin/python
> 
> import string
> inp = open("const.txt","r")
> #
> # Read File
> #
> 
> while True:
> 	
>         #
>         # Get line from file
>         #
> 	line=inp.readline()
> 
>         #
>         # Check for EOF or break line up to extract relevant pieces
>         #
>         if len(line) == 0:
> 		break
> 	else:
> 		split_line=line.split()
> 		length=len(split_line)
> 		count=0
> 	
>         #
>         # Evaluate list item and assign variable based on its contents
>         # Print statements are for debugging purposes only
>         #
> 	for i in range(length):
> 		if split_line[count] == "-m":
> 			qmgr=split_line[count+1]
> 			print "Queue Manager",qmgr;
> 		elif split_line[count] == "-s":
> 			server=split_line[count+1]
> 			print "Server",server;
> 		elif split_line[count] == "-p":
> 			port=split_line[count+1]
> 			print "Port",port;
> 		elif split_line[count] == "-o":
> 			object=split_line[count+1]
> 			print "Object",object;
> 		elif split_line[count] == "-k":
> 			key=split_line[count+1]
> 			print "Key",key;
> 		elif split_line[count] == "-t":
> 			mto=split_line[count+1]
> 			print "To",mto;	
> 		elif split_line[count] == "-c":
> 			check=split_line[count+1]	
> 			print "Check",check;
> 		elif split_line[count] == "-d":
> 			report=""
> 			print "Report",report;
> 		elif split_line[count] == "-q":
> 			display=False
> 			print "Display",display;
> 		else:
> 			continue
> 			
> 		count=count+1
> 
> # Close input file
> #
> inp.close()
> 

Others have addressed your specific question.  I'm going to make
a different suggestion.  Change your thinking so that you can use
ConfigParser to get your values from a .INI/.CONF file instead.
The file would look something like:

[section001]
m=queuemanager
server=myserver
port=1080
key=somekey
object=someobject
c=20
emailtolist=test at email.com

[section002]
.
. If you have many of these just put things in a loop
. and process each section
.



You can then read with (not tested):

import ConfigParser
inifilename='program.ini'
INI=ConfigParser.ConfigParser()
INI.read(inifilename)
section='section001'
option='m'
try: m=INI.get(section, option)
except: m=None
option='server'
try: server=INI.get(section, option)
except: server=None
option='port'
try: port=INI.getint(section, option)
except: port=None # Or set to default port
option='key'
try: key=INI.get(section, option)
except: key=None
option='object'
try: object=INI.get(section, option)
except: object=None
option='c'
try: c=INI.getint(section, option)
except: c=None
option='emailtolist'
try: emailtolist=INI.get(section, option).split(';')
except: emailtolist=None


Just a suggestion.

-Larry Bates