John Machin wrote:
[...]
I wouldn't use fileinput for a "commercial data processing" exercise,
because it's slow, and (if it involved using the Python csv module) it
opens the files in text mode, and because in such exercises I don't
often need to process multiple files as though they were one file.
If the process runs once a month, and take ten minutes to process the
required data, isn't that fast enough. It's unwise to act as though
"slow" is an absolute term.
When I am interested in multiple files -- more likely a script that
scans source files -- even though I wouldn't care about the speed nor
the binary mode, I usually do something like:
for pattern in args: # args from an optparse parser
for filename in glob.glob(pattern):
for line in open(filename):
There is also an "on principle" element to it as well -- with
fileinput one has to use the awkish methods like filelineno() and
nextfile(); strikes me as a tricksy and inverted way of doing things.
But if it happens to be convenient for the task at hand why deny the OP
the use of a tool that can solve a problem? We shouldn't be so purist
that we create extra (and unnecessary) work :-), and principles should
be tempered with pragmatism in the real world.
regards
Steve
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