Python skipping last element in while iterating a list using for loop [duplicate]

I have turned this into a much simpler piece of code and tried to work out what you are really trying to do. There is a whole lot of unecessary code and why would you use a class to illustrate your problem?

>>> x=['Manager', 'Accountant', 'Created By', 'fifth', '', '']
>>> result = [i for i in x if i.strip()]
>>> result
['Manager', 'Accountant', 'Created By', 'fifth']
>>>

This is equivalent to your class, sans debugging prints, and with a shortened variable name.

class Sample:
   def __init__(self):
       self.footers = ['Manager', 'Accountant', 'Created By', 'fifth', '', '']
       self.footers = [x for x in self.footers if x.strip() != ""]
       self.int_size_of_string = sum(len(x) for x in self.footers)

if __name__ == '__main__':
    myclass = Sample()
    print myclass.footers
    print myclass.int_size_of_string

I've also made int_size_of_string an attribute, since otherwise it is not accessible once __init__ has completed (you cannot return a value from __init__). The strip method removes any number of spaces and other whitespace characters from both ends of the string.

The reason your code didn't work was because you were modifying your list as you were iterating over it. You removed the second to last item, so the last item took its place, and then when it moved on to the next item, there were no more items left.

okay, the reason it is not working is because your loop goes over each item in your list. when it finds a space, it removes that item. and displays your current list. so the first time, it will show you the space since there are 2 of them.

BUT, now your loop has failed because you have modified the list while in the loop and so there are no more items for it to iterate around, since you were at item 5 out of 6, and then you removed item 5, now the list only contains 5 items, but the loop seeks item 6. since there is none, it exits. leaving the list alone as it is.

essentially, what you should do is the following:

class Sample:
   def __init__(self):
       self.lst_report_footer_strings = \
['Manager', 'Accountant', 'Created By', 'fifth', '', '']
       int_size_of_string = 0
       lst_temp_report_footer = self.lst_report_footer_strings
       temp_remove_list = []
       for lst_report_footer_item in xrange(len(self.lst_report_footer_strings)):
           print lst_temp_report_footer
           print self.lst_report_footer_strings[lst_report_footer_item]
           if lst_temp_report_footer[lst_report_footer_item] in ['',' ']:
               print "Inside if : Item =="+self.lst_report_footer_strings[lst_report_footer_item]
               temp_remove_list.append(lst_report_footer_item)   
           else:
               print "Inside else : length = ",str(len(lst_temp_report_footer[lst_report_footer_item]))
               int_size_of_string += len(lst_temp_report_footer[lst_report_footer_item])

       for item in reversed(temp_remove_list):
           del lst_temp_report_footer[item]

       print "final list : == ",lst_temp_report_footer

if __name__ == '__main__':
    ins_class = Sample()

note - there was something strange about the tabs in this file, i hope it sorts out for you.