Question

Good day!
i have a code below:

def initial(*args):
    for arg in args:
        with open(arg) as f:
            print 'passed'

it called from this code:

if __name__ == '__main__':
   initial('test_staff/1.txt', 'test_staff/d2.txt', 'test_staff/1.txt')

My question is, if second parametr ‘test_staff/d2.txt’ broken(file not exist), how to continue execute a function(with third param)?

I see several methods to do it:

1. write function to pass existance
2. use try, throw, finally.

but how it perform with “with statement from pep” ?

Thank you!

upd: function name changed from __initial__() to initial()

Answer 1

I’d suggest to check whether the file exists or doing some try / except

import os

def main(*args):
    for arg in args:
        if not os.path.exists(arg):
            continue

        with open(arg) as f:
            print("passed")

Otherwise you could just catch the exception (IOError)

def main(*args):
    for arg in args:
        try:
            with open(arg) as f:
                print("passed")
        except IOError:
            print("File doesn't exist")

Some people say “Try and Catch” instead of doing many checks, there are others that prefer checking instead of trying and catching! IMHO, both of them are fine!