Terry Reedy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message > news:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > | I'm not sure if I have even phrased that right but anyway.... > | > | How does one find (in the standard Python documentation) information > | about things like the iteritems() method and the enumerate() function. > > The Library Reference manual sections on builtin functions and dict > methods. > > Or, help(enumerate) and help({}.iteritems) > .... but that doesn't address my problem really, how do I know that I need to look for the words enumerate and/or iteritems? This is what my original question was about.
There I was thinking that there has to be an easy way to get line numbers as I read lines from a file but not knowing how to find out how to do it:- First question, what sort of 'thing' is the file object, I need to know that if I'm to look up ways of using it. Second question, even if I know what sort of thing a file object is, how do I find methods applicable to it and/or functions applicable to it? The possibility that I might want either a method or a function adds to the fun. In my original query it seemed odd that some objects have the iteritems *method* whereas other objects have the enumerate *function*. It's a common problem in all sorts of computer fields, if you know the name of what you want it's easy to find out details of how to use it but if you don't know its name (or even if it exists) it's much more difficult to find. I've only been using Python for a few months and most of the time I can find my way to what I need but this area of "what things can I do with this object" still eludes me sometimes. What *I* need (I'm not sure if this is a universal requirement though) is some consistent way of firstly finding out what sort of an object something is (i.e. in this case, what sort of object is a file) and then getting a list of methods that I can apply to that object (O.K., this may need some hierachy or other classification to keep it sane, but hopefully you can see where I'm going). -- Chris Green -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list