Why is this else: pass needed for processing to continue? [closed]

Answer 1

You don't need it. I ran the following 2 scripts:

#test1.py
import os

source_dir = '.'
ext = '.txt'

for dirName, subdirList, fileList in os.walk(source_dir):
    if not any(os.path.splitext(fileName)[1].lower() == ext for fileName in fileList):
        print '  skipping "{}"'.format(dirName)
        continue
    else:  # why is this clause needed to continue this iteration of a loop?
        print 'contains   "{}"'.format(dirName)
        pass

    print 'processing "{}" which has "{}" files'.format(dirName, ext)

and

#test2.py
import os

source_dir = '.'
ext = '.txt'

for dirName, subdirList, fileList in os.walk(source_dir):
    if not any(os.path.splitext(fileName)[1].lower() == ext for fileName in fileList):
        print '  skipping "{}"'.format(dirName)
        continue
    #else:  # why is this clause needed to continue this iteration of a loop?
    #    print 'contains   "{}"'.format(dirName)
    #    pass

    print 'processing "{}" which has "{}" files'.format(dirName, ext)

I ran them as:

python test1.py > junk.log
python test2.py > junk.log2

Here's the first couple lines of junk.log:

test $ head junk.log
processing "." which has ".txt" files
  skipping "./new"
  skipping "./unum"
processing "./unum/kiv-unum-409befe069ac" which has ".txt" files
  skipping "./unum/kiv-unum-409befe069ac/build"
  skipping "./unum/kiv-unum-409befe069ac/build/bdist.macosx-10.3-fat"
  skipping "./unum/kiv-unum-409befe069ac/build/lib"
  skipping "./unum/kiv-unum-409befe069ac/build/lib/tests"
  skipping "./unum/kiv-unum-409befe069ac/build/lib/unum"
  skipping "./unum/kiv-unum-409befe069ac/build/lib/unum/units

Notice the presence of "processing" lines.

Then I diff the output:

diff junk.log junk.log2

with the following results:

0a1
> contains   "."
3a5
> contains   "./unum/kiv-unum-409befe069ac"
14a17
> contains   "./unum/kiv-unum-409befe069ac/docs"
16a20
> contains   "./unum/kiv-unum-409befe069ac/nose-1.2.1-py2.7.egg/EGG-INFO"
19a24
> contains   "./unum/kiv-unum-409befe069ac/nose-1.2.1-py2.7.egg/nose"
30a36
> contains   "./unum/kiv-unum-409befe069ac/Unum.egg-info"

Note that there are no differences on the "processing" lines.

Answer 2

I'm going to answer my own question and eventually accept it. The seemingly odd behavior described was caused by an subtle indention problem, the possibility of which was first brought to my attention by user @delnan. Because it was invisible, initially I didn't think it could be the case, but eventually found it after more investigation. The details of which have been added to the end of my question.