Newbie question - better way to do this?

[Eric]

I have some working code, but I realized it is just the way I would
write it in C, which means there is probably a better (more pythonic)
way of doing it.

Here's the section of code:

accumulate = firstIsCaps = False
accumStart = i = 0
while i < len(words):
firstIsCaps = firstIsCapitalized(words)
if firstIsCaps and not accumulate:
accumStart, accumulate = i, True
elif accumulate and not firstIsCaps:
doSomething(words[accumStart : i])
accumulate = False
i += 1

words is a big long array of strings. What I want to do is find
consecutive sequences of words that have the first letter capitalized,
and then call doSomething on them. (And you can ignore the fact that
it won't find a sequence at the very end of words, that is fine for my
purposes).

Thanks,
Eric

 

[Gabriel Genellina]

I have some working code, but I realized it is just the way I would
write it in C, which means there is probably a better (more pythonic)
way of doing it.

Here's the section of code:

accumulate = firstIsCaps = False
accumStart = i = 0
while i < len(words):
firstIsCaps = firstIsCapitalized(words)
if firstIsCaps and not accumulate:
accumStart, accumulate = i, True
elif accumulate and not firstIsCaps:
doSomething(words[accumStart : i])
accumulate = False
i += 1

words is a big long array of strings. What I want to do is find
consecutive sequences of words that have the first letter capitalized,
and then call doSomething on them. (And you can ignore the fact that
it won't find a sequence at the very end of words, that is fine for my
purposes).

Using groupby:

py> from itertools import groupby
py>
py> words = "Este es un Ejemplo. Los Ejemplos usualmente son tontos. Yo
siempre
escribo tonterias.".split()
py>
py> for upper, group in groupby(words, str.istitle):
.... if upper:
.... print list(group) # doSomething(list(group))
....
['Este']
['Ejemplo.', 'Los', 'Ejemplos']
['Yo']

You could replace your firstIsCapitalized function instead of the string
method istitle(), but I think it's the same. See
http://docs.python.org/lib/itertools-functions.html

 

[Steven D'Aprano]

words is a big long array of strings. What I want to do is find
consecutive sequences of words that have the first letter capitalized,
and then call doSomething on them. (And you can ignore the fact that
it won't find a sequence at the very end of words, that is fine for my
purposes).

Assuming the list of words will fit into memory, and you can probably
expect to fit anything up to millions of words comfortably into memory,
something like this might be suitable:

list_of_words = "lots of words go here".split()

accumulator = []
for word in list_of_words:
if word.istitle():
accumulator.append(word)
else:
doSomething(accumulator)
accumulator = []

 

[John Machin]

words is a big long array of strings. What I want to do is find
consecutive sequences of words that have the first letter capitalized,
and then call doSomething on them. (And you can ignore the fact that
it won't find a sequence at the very end of words, that is fine for my
purposes).

Assuming the list of words will fit into memory, and you can probably
expect to fit anything up to millions of words comfortably into memory,
something like this might be suitable:

list_of_words = "lots of words go here".split()

accumulator = []
for word in list_of_words:
if word.istitle():
accumulator.append(word)
else:
doSomething(accumulator)
accumulator = []

Bzzzt. Needs the following code at the end:
if accumulator:
doSomething(accumulator)

 

[Steven D'Aprano]

words is a big long array of strings. What I want to do is find
consecutive sequences of words that have the first letter capitalized,
and then call doSomething on them. (And you can ignore the fact that
it won't find a sequence at the very end of words, that is fine for my
purposes).

Assuming the list of words will fit into memory, and you can probably
expect to fit anything up to millions of words comfortably into memory,
something like this might be suitable:

list_of_words = "lots of words go here".split()

accumulator = []
for word in list_of_words:
if word.istitle():
accumulator.append(word)
else:
doSomething(accumulator)
accumulator = []

Bzzzt. Needs the following code at the end:
if accumulator:
doSomething(accumulator)

Bzzzt! Somebody didn't read the Original Poster's comment "And you can
ignore the fact that it won't find a sequence at the very end of words,
that is fine for my purposes".

Of course, for somebody whose requirements _aren't_ broken, you would be
completely right. Besides, I'm under no obligation to write all the O.P.'s
code for him, just point him in the right direction.

 

[Paul Rubin]

words is a big long array of strings. What I want to do is find
consecutive sequences of words that have the first letter capitalized,
and then call doSomething on them. (And you can ignore the fact that
it won't find a sequence at the very end of words, that is fine for my
purposes).

As another poster suggested, use itertools.groupby:

for cap,g in groupby(words, firstIsCapitalized):
if cap: doSomething(list(g))

This will handle sequences at the the end words just like other sequences.