Best way to check that you are at the beginning (the end) of an iterable?

[Cameron Simpson]

On 08Sep2011 14:21, Chris Torek <nospam at torek.net> wrote:
| In article <mailman.854.1315441399.27778.python-list at python.org>
| Cameron Simpson  <cs at zip.com.au> wrote:
| >Facilities like feof() in C and eof in Pascal already lead to lots of
| >code that runs happily with flat files and behaves badly in interactive
| >or piped input. It is _so_ easy to adopt a style like:
| >
| >  while not eof(filehandle):
| >    line = filehandle.nextline()
| >    ...
| 
| Minor but important point here: eof() in Pascal is predictive (uses
| a "crystal ball" to peer into the future to see whether EOF is is
| about to occur -- which really means, reads ahead, causing that
| interactivity problem you mentioned), but feof() in C is "post-dictive".
| The feof(stream) function returns a false value if the stream has
| not yet encountered an EOF, but your very next attempt to read from
| it may (or may not) immediately encounter that EOF.

Thanks. I had forgotten this nuance. Cheers,
-- 
Cameron Simpson <cs at zip.com.au> DoD#743
http://www.cskk.ezoshosting.com/cs/

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