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I am kinda new to Python, but not new to programming.
I am a certified Java programmer.

I don't want to read line after line, neither do I
want to read the whole file all at once. Thus none of
read(), readline(), readlines() is what I want. I want
to read a text file sentence by sentence.

A sentence by definition is roughly the part between a
full stop and another full stop or !, ?

So, for example, for the following text:

"Some words here, and some other words. Then another
segment follows, and more. This is a question, a junk
question, followed by a question mark?"

It has 3 sentences (2 full stops and 1 question mark),
and therefore I want to read it in 3 lumps and each
lump gives me one complete sentence as follows:

lump 1: Some words here, and some other words.

lump 2: Then another segment follows, and more.

lump 3: This is a question, a junk question, followed
by a question mark?

How can I achieve this? Do we have a readsentence()
function?

Please give a hint. Thank you!


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Anthony Liu <> wrote:
> I am kinda new to Python, but not new to programming.
> I am a certified Java programmer.
>
> I don't want to read line after line, neither do I
> want to read the whole file all at once. Thus none of
> read(), readline(), readlines() is what I want. I want
> to read a text file sentence by sentence.

Question: How do I read sentence by sentence?
Answer: Read input stream char by char.

--
William Park, Open Geometry Consulting, <>
Linux solution for data processing and document management.

On 7 Mar 2004 03:00:14 GMT, William Park <>
declaimed the following in comp.lang.python:

> Question: How do I read sentence by sentence?
> Answer: Read input stream char by char.

Ugh... Even my jaded neophyte self (as of Intro to FORTRAN,
1976) wouldn't consider that... Of course, since FORTRAN basically was
line-oriented, one would be biased to other methods.

IE; write a wrapper subroutine that reads whole lines, looks for
".", and returns what lies before it (including it); then shift the
remains and append the next line for the subsequent call.

--
> ================================================== ============ <
> | Wulfraed Dennis Lee Bieber KD6MOG <
> | Bestiaria Support Staff <
> ================================================== ============ <
> Home Page: <http://www.dm.net/~wulfraed/> <
> Overflow Page: <http://wlfraed.home.netcom.com/> <

On Fri, 5 Mar 2004, Anthony Liu <> wrote:
> I am kinda new to Python, but not new to programming.
>
> I don't want to read line after line, neither do I
> want to read the whole file all at once. Thus none of
> read(), readline(), readlines() is what I want. I want
> to read a text file sentence by sentence.
>
> A sentence by definition is roughly the part between a
> full stop and another full stop or !, ?
>
> So, for example, for the following text:
>
> "Some words here, and some other words. Then another
> segment follows, and more. This is a question, a junk
> question, followed by a question mark?"
>
> It has 3 sentences (2 full stops and 1 question mark),
> snip
> How can I achieve this? Do we have a readsentence()
> function?
>
> Please give a hint. Thank you!
>
the hint :
import itertools
help(itertool.takewhile)

# not tested (no python 2.3 on Debian gateway at home)

import itertools
def readsentence(iterable, ends = (".", "!", "?"), yield_fn=''.join):
"""generator function which yields sentences terminated by ends"""
end_pred = ends
if not callable(ends):
end_pred = lambda c : c not in ends
it = iter(iterable)
while True:
sentence = []
add = sentence.append
for c in itertools.takewhile(end_pred, it)
add(c)
# How to have the item skipped by takewhile ?
t = tuple(sentence)
if callable(yield_fn):
t = yield_fn(t)
yield t

text = """\
Some words here, and some other words. Then another
segment follows, and more. This is a question, a junk
question, followed by a question mark?"""

for sentence in readsentence(text):
print sentence