On Sat, Feb 6, 2010 at 11:35 AM, David <ld...@gmx.net> wrote: > Hello again, > > in Knowlton's 2008 book "Python: Create, Modify, Reuse" the author makes > frequent use of the term -1 in his code, but doesn't tell to what aim. For > want of search terms Google is not helpful. Could someone please enlighten > me by means of a one-liner as a reply? > > Example Code: > > for item in filelist: > if item.find(extension)!= -1: > snaplist.append(item)
Wayne has explained the -1; I will add that a more idiomatic way to write this is for item in filelist: if extension in item: snaplist.append(item) or using a list comprehension (assuming snaplist starts out empty): snaplist = [ item for item in filelist if extension in item ] Assuming extension is a file extension, I would actually use endswith() to filter the items: snaplist = [ item for item in filelist if item.endswith(extension) ] Kent _______________________________________________ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor