-----Original Message----- What about,
def myMethod(): for condition, exitCode in [ (cond1, 'error1'), (cond2, 'very bad error'), ]: if not condition: break else: do_some_usefull_stuff() # executed only if the we never hit the break statement. exitCode = good1 return exitCode ---- I reply ----- This is interesting, but I don't understand it (which speaks volumes about the level of my understanding of Python). First, just to clarify, I don't think the indentation I saw was what was originally posted. The "else" must be indented to match the "if", and the two statements under "else" are in the else block. The return statement is indented at the same level as the for statement, so that it will be executed after the for loop exits. Correct? Now, the for loop will set condition to cond1 and exitCode to 'error1'. Then it checks the contents of the condition variable. But what does "not <variable_name>" by itself mean? I'm guessing that it checks that the variable refers to an object. So, the first time through, condition refers to cond1, the if condition is false, and the else block gets executed, and exitCode is changed to refer to good1. The next time through the loop, condition is set to refer to cond2 and exitCode is set to refer to 'very bad error'. Again, condition is refering to something, so the else block is executed and we do useful stuff again, which is probably not helpful and could well be harmful. exitCode is set to good1, we're finished with the loop, and we return exitCode. What happens if we try to do useful stuff, and we can't? Where does the error indication get set? And once it does get set, the only way we can exit the for loop is for condition to not refer to anything. How can that happen? Thank you very much for your explanation and your patience with one who only uses Python in very simplistic ways. RobR -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list