Reading a portion of a file

[Jordan]

On Mar 8, 11:52 am, "Rune Strand" <rune.str... at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mar 8, 5:12 pm, cmfvulcan... at gmail.com wrote:
>
> > I am using a script with a single file containing all data in multiple
> > sections. Each section begins with "#VS:CMD:command:START" and ends
> > with "#VS:CMD:command:STOP". There is a blank line in between each
> > section. I'm looking for the best way to grab one section at a time.
> > Will I have to read the entire file to a string and parse it further
> > or is it possible to grab the section directly when doing a read? I'm
> > guessing regex is the best possible way. Any help is greatly
> > appreciated.
>
> Seems like something along these line will do:
>
> _file_ = "filepart.txt"
>
> begin_tag = '#VS:CMD:command:START'
> end_tag = '#VS:CMD:command:STOP'
>
> sections = []
> new_section = []
> for line in open(_file_):
>     line = line.strip()
>     if begin_tag in line:
>         new_section = []
>     elif end_tag in line:
>         sections.append(new_section)
>     else:
>         if line: new_section.append(line)
>
> for s in sections: print s
>
> If your want more control, perhaps flagging "inside_section",
> "outside_section" is an idea.

You probably don't want to use regex for something this simple; it's
likely to make things even more complicated.  Is there a space between
the begin_tag and the first word of a section (same question with the
end_tag)?