Is this: while True: data = fp.read(4096) if not data: break ...
not equivalent to this: data = fp.read (4096) while data: ...{handle the chunk here} data = fp.read (4096) Heres the article that sparked this question: http://wordaligned.org/articles/pythons-lesser-known-loop-control -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list