On 2011-08-27, Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.pyt...@pearwood.info> wrote: > greymaus wrote: > >> On 2011-08-26, D'Arcy J.M. Cain <da...@druid.net> wrote: >>> On 26 Aug 2011 18:39:07 GMT >>> greymaus <greyma...@mail.com> wrote: >>>> >>>> Is there an equivelent for the AWK RS in Python? >>>> >>>> >>>> as in RS='\n\n' >>>> will seperate a file at two blank line intervals >>> >>> open("file.txt").read().split("\n\n") >>> >> >> >> Ta!.. bit awkard. :)))))) > > Er, is that meant to be a pun? "Awk[w]ard", as in awk-ward?
Yup, mispelled it and realized th error :) > > In any case, no, the Python line might be a handful of characters longer > than the AWK equivalent, but it isn't awkward. It is logical and easy to > understand. It's embarrassingly easy to describe what it does: > > open("file.txt") # opens the file > .read() # reads the contents of the file > .split("\n\n") # splits the text on double-newlines. > > The only tricky part is knowing that \n means newline, but anyone familiar > with C, Perl, AWK etc. should know that. > > The Python code might be "long" (but only by the standards of AWK, which can > be painfully concise), but it is simple, obvious and readable. A few extra > characters is the price you pay for making your language readable. At the > cost of a few extra key presses, you get something that you will be able to > understand in 10 years time. > > AWK is a specialist text processing language. Python is a general scripting > and programming language. They have different values: AWK values short, > concise code, Python is willing to pay a little more in source code. > > RS, and its Perl equivelent, which I forget, mean that you can read in full multiline records. (I am coming into Python via Perl from AWK, and trying to get a grip on the language and its idions) Thanks to All Oh, Awk is far more than a text processing language, may be old (like me!) but useful (ditto) -- maus . . ... NO CARRIER -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list