Slicing Issues

[BJ Swope]

**Given this set of data (88 characters wide) in a file...

067AARON WAY                       30043002500002599A      098
0670000017  129 672
067ABBA CT                         30518000882000902A      025  11
0670163227  365 670
067ABBEY HILL RD                   30024000100000299A      004  12
0670000027  276 667
067ABBEY LN                      SW30047004900005099A      052
0670000036  093 659
067ABBEY PARK WAY                  30044000901000967A      043
0670161916  177 622
067ABBEY POINTE WAY                30024000103000176A      100  12
0670178087  235 667
067ABBIE KILGORE WAY               30052001314001487A      041
0670155595  096 649
067ABBOTT DR                       30519002103002236A      129
0670176283  007 682
067ABBOTTS BRIDGE RD               30096003550003578E      096  04
0670128036  293 697
067ABBOTTS BRIDGE RD               30096003551003935O      056  04
0670128046  293 697

and this code...
dafile = 'gwinnett_streets_short.txt'
f = open(dafile, 'r')
for line in f:
    line=line.strip('\r\n')
    county_code=line[0:3]
    street_name=line[3:30]
    district_combo=line[85:3]
    print county_code, '|' , street_name , '|' , district_combo , '|' ,
len(line), '|'


I get this output...
067 | AARON WAY                   |  | 88 |
067 | ABBA CT                     |  | 88 |
067 | ABBEY HILL RD               |  | 88 |
067 | ABBEY LN                    |  | 88 |
067 | ABBEY PARK WAY              |  | 88 |
067 | ABBEY POINTE WAY            |  | 88 |
067 | ABBIE KILGORE WAY           |  | 88 |
067 | ABBOTT DR                   |  | 88 |
067 | ABBOTTS BRIDGE RD           |  | 88 |
067 | ABBOTTS BRIDGE RD           |  | 88 |

If I change the slice for district_combo to
    district_combo=line[85:]

The output is what I want...

067 | AARON WAY                   | 672 | 88 |
067 | ABBA CT                     | 670 | 88 |
067 | ABBEY HILL RD               | 667 | 88 |
067 | ABBEY LN                    | 659 | 88 |
067 | ABBEY PARK WAY              | 622 | 88 |
067 | ABBEY POINTE WAY            | 667 | 88 |
067 | ABBIE KILGORE WAY           | 649 | 88 |
067 | ABBOTT DR                   | 682 | 88 |
067 | ABBOTTS BRIDGE RD           | 697 | 88 |
067 | ABBOTTS BRIDGE RD           | 697 | 88 |


Why does the final slice have to be an open slice?  Why can the slice not be
like the previous slices in which it is a specified range of characters?

-- 
We are all slave to our own paradigm. -- Joshua Williams
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