This program finds the last heat of formation in all GAMESS log files for semiempirical geometry optimizations

read.py

"""
type "python read.py" to use

This program finds the last heat of formation in all GAMESS log files
for semiempirical geometry optimizations
"""

import string
from glob import glob

for filename in glob("/home/user/*.log"):

   f = open(filename,'r')

   while 1:
      line = f.readline() # read a line from he file
      if not line: break # if end-of-file: quit
      words = string.split(line) # split line into words
      if len(words) < 1:
          continue
      if words[0] == 'HEAT':
          heat = words[-2]

   print filename, heat

Apologies for the unrequested code review but some Python idioms that might help:

1. for line in f: (this replaces lines 15->17)
2. words = line.split() (replaces 8 and 18)