Split/Join/Files

Review of some string/list/file functions/methods:

.split():

>>> s='Hi<bleep>there<bleep>Fred'
>>> things=s.split('<bleep>')
>>> print things
['Hi','there','Fred']

>>> another=s.split('<')
>>> print another
['Hi','bleep>there','bleep>Fred']

>>> t='Hi;there;Fred;'
>>> print t.split(';')
['Hi','there','Fred','']   # note the extra blank string at the end of the list

>>> v='   Hi   there Fred   '
>>> v.split()
['Hi','there','Fred']

.join():

>>> lst=['Hi','there','Fred']
>>> p=','.join(lst)
>>> print p
Hi,there,Fred

>>> print '\n'.join(lst)   # notice how print displays strings
Hi
there
Fred

>>> '\n'.join(lst)    # notice the difference between using print to display a string, and just asking the shell to display it (as it's doing here)
'Hi\nthere\nFred'

File reading/writing:

def FileReading(filename):
	# read a file and return a list of lines in the file
	try:
		f=open(filename,'r')
		s=f.read()
		f.close()
	except:
		s=''
	lines=s.split('\n')
	# remove any trailing blank lines
	while len(lines)>0 and lines[-1]=='':
		lines=lines[:-1]
	return lines

def FileWriting(filename,stuff):
	# write stuff (a string) to a file
	try:
		f=open(filename,'w')
		f.write(stuff)
		f.close()
	except:
		return False
	return True