Python: How to ignore #comment lines when reading in a file

John   picture John · Nov 10, 2009 · Viewed 94.9k times · Source

In Python, I have just read a line form a text file and I'd like to know how to code to ignore comments with a hash # at the beginning of the line.

I think it should be something like this:

for 
   if line !contain #
      then ...process line
   else end for loop 

But I'm new to Python and I don't know the syntax

Answer

ghostdog74 picture ghostdog74 · Nov 10, 2009

you can use startswith()

eg

for line in open("file"):
    li=line.strip()
    if not li.startswith("#"):
        print line.rstrip()