Possible implementation of getWrap function of B3 Parser class

get_wrap.py

def getWrap(self, text, length=80, sv_prefix_length=9):
    """
    Returns a sequence of lines for text that fits within the limits
    :param text: The text to be splitted
    :param length: The maximum length of each line
    :param sv_prefix_length: The length of the prefix added by the server to the message
    """
    if not text:
        return []

    length = int(length)
    sv_prefix_length = int(sv_prefix_length)
    first_line_length = length - len(self.msgPrefix) - sv_prefix_length

    # if the message fits in the first line
    if len(text) < first_line_length:
        return [text]

    lines = []
    start_index = 0
    end_index = length - 1
    while True:
        # if it's the last line make sure
        # we have a valid end index
        if end_index >= len(text):
            # rollback until index is valid
            while end_index > len(text):
                end_index -= 1
            lines.append(text[start_index:end_index])
            break
        else:
            if len(lines) > 0:
                max_length = length
            else:
                max_length = first_line_length

            # rollback until we find an empty
            # char where to split our input string
            while text[end_index - 1] != '':
                end_index -= 1

                # this is to check whether the string we
                # have to split is a char sequence without
                # spaces: fi we skip this check we may have
                # and infinite loop
                if end_index <= start_index:
                    end_index += max_length - 1
                    break

            lines.append(text[start_index:end_index])
            start_index = end_index
            end_index += max_length - 1

    return lines