Perl to Python

[tunisia]

Trying to convert the following block of perl to python

for($row = 0, $mytype = 500; $row < $filearray_count; $row++) {
                if ($_ eq $filearray[$row][0]) { 
                $mytype = $filearray[$row][1]; 
                print "$row, $mytype,  $_ \n";
                break;

And here is the python attempt. I'm not sure if I'm dealing with $mytype = 500 in the same way

 for member in files:
        for x in range(0, filearray_count):
            mytype = 500
            if member in filearray[x][0]:
                mytype = filearray[x][1]
                #print(x, mytype, member)
                break

[Trentacle]

Nope. The first part of a 3-statement for clause is run only once, before the first test or the first execution of the loop body. The equivalent would be more like

mytype = 500
for x in range(filearray_count):
    ...

That said, 500 seems to be somewhat arbitrary since you don't use the value of mytype within the loop -- instead, you assign to it before using it.

I would guess that 500 is a sentinel value that is impossible or unlikely to find in the actual filearray structure, and is used after the loop terminates to test whether the inner if statement ever executed. If that's the case, I'd make it a dedicated sentinel instead:

sentinel = False
for x in range(len(filearray)):
    if member in filearray[x][0]:
        sentinel = True
        print(x, filearray[x][1], member, sep=', ')

Notice I also changed range(0, filearray_count) to range(len(filearray)) and changed your print call to use a custom separator so it looks more like the Perl output -- if you need to do more fancy stuff you'd be better off with the str.format method.

If mytype needs to be the last value of filearray[x][1] printed out after the loop terminates, I'd still initialize it to None instead of 500. What's special about 500?

[TrustyTony]

Easier would be just find out what the Perl code is trying to do. I have suspicion that it is overly complicated way to do something easy to do in Python.

One suspicious thing is that you use in in Python when I see eq in Perl.

[tunisia]

I think pyTony is probably right. I'm mostly trying to do a direct translation. But I suspect there are many
pythonic improvements that could be made.

[tunisia]

I'm rusty on my python chops and I don't know a lick of perl. It's actually a good way to get back into the swing of things.

[TrustyTony]

How come you want to translate the Perl code, when you have no idea of what it does, or do not want to tell it. This is Python forum, I for one can not read Perl for exact meaning of the code.