Reading a portion of a file

[Jordan]

On Mar 8, 12:46 pm, "Jordan" <jordan.tayl... at gmail.com> wrote:
> 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)?

Sent the post too soon.  What is the endline character for the file
type?  What type of file is it?    An example section would be nice
too.  Cheers.