On Sun, 05 Feb 2006 05:45:24 +0000, Avi Kak wrote:
> Hello:
>
> Does Python support a peek like method for its file objects?
>
> I'd like to be able to look at the next byte in a disk file before
> deciding whether I should read it with, say, the read() method.
> Is it possible to do so in Python?
# WARNING: untested
fp = file("some file on disk", "rb")
b = ""
while 1:
# peek at the next byte
c = fp.read(1)
# decide whether to read it
if c == "?":
# pretend we never read the byte
del c
fp.seek(-1, 1) # but be careful in text mode!
break
# now read the byte "for real"
b = fp.read(1)
if not b:
# we've reached the end of the file
break
fp.close()
I'm not sure exactly why you'd want to do this, but it should be doable,
at least for files that support seeking.
--
Steven.
--
http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
