What is the easiest way to get all strings that do not start with a character?
Use generator expressions, the best way I think.
for line in (line for line in x if not line.startswith('?')): DO_STUFFOr your way:
for line in x: if line.startswith("?"): continue DO_STUFFOr:
for line in x: if not line.startswith("?"): DO_STUFFIt is really up to your programming style. I prefer the first one, but maybe second one seems simplier. But I don't really like third one because of a lot of indentation.
Here is a nice one-liner, which is very close to natural language.
String definition:
StringList = [ '__one', '__two', 'three', 'four' ]Code which performs the deed:
BetterStringList = [ p for p in StringList if not(p.startswith('__'))]
Something like this is probably what you're after:
with open('myfile.txt') as fh: for line in fh: if line[0] != '?': # strings can be accessed like lists - they're immutable sequences. continue # All of the processing here when lines don't start with question marks.