This section highlights two common features of Python that we will frequently encounter in forensic scripts. Therefore, we will introduce these objects and functionality in great detail.
You have previously learned several iterable objects, such as lists, sets, and tuples. In Python, a data type is considered an iterator if an __iter__
method is defined or elements can be accessed using indices. These three data types (that is, lists, sets, and tuples) allow us to iterate through their contents in a simple and efficient manner. For this reason, we often use these data types when iterating through the lines in a file, file entries within a directory listing, or trying to identify a file based on a series of file signatures.
The iter
data type allows us to step through data in a manner that doesn't preserve the initial object. This seems undesirable; however, when working with large sets or on machines with limited resources, it is very useful. This...