[Tutor] Line matching without a for statement?

[Tom Tucker]

Tutors,

Good evening.  Is it possible to search/query a variable without doing
a for statement (ie. for line in ouptut).  Hopefully my terminology is
correct.  The below example script might make more sense.  Thoughts?

Thanks,
Tom

SCRIPT (Example)
######################
#!/usr/bin/python
import os, re

output = os.popen('/sbin/ifconfig -a').readlines()
interface = re.compile(r'^eth\d')

if interface.search(output):
        print "found an interface"


ERROR OUTPUT
###########################
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "./test.py", line 9, in ?
if interface.search(output):
TypeError: expected string or buffer