Loop over sys.args

Question

When trying to loop over sys.args I'm getting the following error:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "./autoCrosRef.py", line 59, in <module>
    cleanFile(inputArgs[i])
TypeError: list indices must be integers, not str

This is how I am calling my program:

./autoCrosRef.py file.txt

and this is the code I'm using to try and loop over it:

import sys
# ------
#  MAIN
# ------
inputArgs = sys.argv

print len(inputArgs)

for i in inputArgs[1:]:

    cleanFile(inputArgs[i])

my print command shows that I am passing 2 args at cmd but it keeps erroring, am I calling it wrong or is my loop wrong?

Answer 1

i there is an item in your inputArgs array - not an index. You could either do

for i in range(1, len(inputArgs)):
    # i is a number, from 1 to len(inputArgs)-1
    cleanFile(inputArgs[i])

or (this one is preferred)

for i in inputArgs[1:]:
    # i is an item from inputArgs. If inputArgs=['foo', 'bar', 'baz']
    # then i is first 'bar' then 'baz'.
    cleanFile(i)