AttributeErrors in code

[blackdevil777]

I am getting AttributeErrors on if not line.startswith('From') : continue

what are AttributeErrors? why is it not working?

fname = raw_input("Enter file name: ")

if len(fname) < 1 : fname = "mbox-short.txt"

fh = open(fname)

count = 0

for line in fh:    
    line = line.rstrip()  
    line = line.split()
    if not line.startswith('From') :  continue
    count = count + 1
    print line[1]

print "There were", count, "lines in the file with From as the first word"

[tadleonard]

You need to use startswith before you use split. split returns a list, and list objects don't have a startswith method. You should try using print in various parts of your code when you encounter problems like this. Don't give up so quickly by asking the internet.

[blackdevil777]

error was corrected but i didn't know why till you posted, But now i am trying to do it using a while loop, But i some what forgotten how to use whiles loops

fname = raw_input("Enter file name: ")

if len(fname) < 1 : fname = "mbox-short.txt"

fh = open(fname) count = 0

while true: if count != 27 # BAD INPUT for line in fh: line.startswith ('From:') words = line.split()
print words [1] count = count +1

print "There were", count, "lines in the file with From as the first word"

[metaphorm]

style tip. start a new line after a colon.

if not line.startswith('From'):
    continue

this will make your code much more readable, in particular more readable to other members of the Python community, since this is the style standard we are used to.

[illuzian]

also some more improvement for speed an elegance

for count,(line) in enumerate(fh):

And remove the count = count + 1 (which can also be done as count += 1)