Assignment in a while?

[Fredrik Lundh]

"none <"@bag.python.org> wrote:

> So it seems that I stumbled on the idiomatic way of doing this then.
> Well, as they say, "When in Rome..." :).  Thanks for pointing out the
> FAQ.  I'll be reading up on it.

the idiomatic way to loop in Python is to use iterators/generators.  if
you have a callable that fetches data from some resource and returns
a "sentinel" when you get to the end, you can use the iter function to
turn it into an iterator:

>>> help(iter)
Help on built-in function iter in module __builtin__:

iter(...)
    iter(collection) -> iterator
    iter(callable, sentinel) -> iterator

    Get an iterator from an object.  In the first form, the argument must
    supply its own iterator, or be a sequence.
    In the second form, the callable is called until it returns the sentinel.

given this, your loop can be written:

    for result in iter(std.fetchone, None):
        print result

</F>