Basic Python File Reader Skeleton

Basic Python File Reader

#!/usr/bin/env python
import re
import sys
from optparse import OptionParser


def main():
    commandLine = OptionParser()
    commandLine.add_option("-f", "--file", type="string", dest="filename",
                           help="Read from specific FILE", action="store", metavar="FILE")
    (options, args) = commandLine.parse_args()
    fileToOpen = sys.stdin
    if options.filename:
        fileToOpen = open(options.filename, "r")
    processLines(fileToOpen)


def processLines(fileHandle):
    cleanRe = re.compile(r'\s+')
    for line in fileHandle:
        line = cleanRe.sub(' ', line.strip(' \t\n\r'))
        print "cleanLine: " + line

main()