[Tutor] parsing woes

[Scott Widney]

> I am attempting to parse a string which is in the form:
> 
> 1 F 5
> 
> I need to make parameter[0]= 1, parameter[1] = F, and 
> parameter[2] = 5.
> The difficulty is that there might be no parameters or any 
> number up to 3. They won't always be a single digit or letter
> but they will always be space-delimited.
.
.
.
> I am parsing them this way:
> 
> if arguments:
>     parameters=arguments.split(" ")
> else: parameters = ""
> 
> 
> Can someone tell me what I am doing wrong? I just want the if
> parameters[2] to be bypassed if there isn't a third parameter.

Maybe I'm missing something, but why not use a for loop to iterate through
the parameters (if any)? And

#####
>>> args1 = "1 F 5"
>>> args2 = "2 G"
>>> args3 = "3"
>>> args4 = ""
>>> def parse_and_print(parameters=""):
...     for param in parameters.split(): print param
...     
>>> parse_and_print(args1)
1
F
5
>>> parse_and_print(args2)
2
G
>>> parse_and_print(args3)
3
>>> parse_and_print(args4)
>>> parse_and_print()
>>> parse_and_print("")
>>> parse_and_print("1 F 5 2 G 3")
1
F
5
2
G
3
>>> 
#####

There are safety precautions one could take, but if you're sure the argument
is always going to be a string then this should suffice.


Scott