Question

Just wrote this function…

def nrofleadingchars(stringtotest, testchar='\t'):
    count = 0
    for c in stringtotest:
        if c == testchar:
            count = count + 1
        else:
            return count
    return count

However does not feel pythonic ‘enough’, suggestions?

Answer 1

In my opinion the code is straightforward, so you should prefer it to some unreadable mess.
I would just shorten it a bit:

def nrofleadingchars(stringtotest, testchar='\t'):
    count = 0
    for c in stringtotest:
        if c != testchar:
            break
        count += 1
    return count