How can I skip the current item and the next in a Python loop?

Question

This might be a really dumb question, however I've looked around online, etc. And have not seen a solid answer.

Is there a simple way to do something like this?

lines = open('something.txt', 'r').readlines() for line in lines:     if line == '!':         # force iteration forward twice         line.next().next()     <etc> 

It's easy to do in C++; just increment the iterator an extra time. Is there an easy way to do that in Python?

I would just like to point, out the main purpose of this question is not about "reading files and such" and skipping things. I was more looking for C++ iterator style iteration. Also the new title is kinda dumb, and i dont really think it reflects the nature of my question.

Answer 1

Try:

lines = iter(open('something.txt', 'r')) for val in lines:     if val == "!":         lines.next()         continue     <etc> 

You may want to catch StopIteration somewhere. It'll occur if the iterator is finished.

Answer 2

The file.readlines method returns a list of strings, and iterating over a list will not let you modify the iteration in the body of the loop. However if you call iter on the list first then you will get an iterator that you can modify in the loop body:

lines = open('something.txt', 'r').readlines() line_iter = iter(lines) for line in line_iter:     if line == '!':         # force iteration forward twice         line_iter.next()         line_iter.next()     <etc> 

As ebo points out the file object itself acts as an iterator, so you can get the same effect by not calling readlines and leaving out the call to iter.