title: SeqIO.parse on a fasta.gz
body: <p>New to coding.  New to Pytho/biopython; this is my first question online, ever.
  How do I open a compressed fasta.gz file to extract info and perform calcuations in my function.  Here is a simplified example of what I'm trying to do (I've tried different ways), and what the error is. The gzip command I'm using doesn't seem to work.?</p>
  
  <pre><code>with gzip.open("practicezip.fasta.gz", "r") as handle:
      for record in SeqIO.parse(handle, "fasta"):
          print(record.id)
  
  Traceback (most recent call last):
  
    File "&lt;ipython-input-192-a94ad3309a16&gt;", line 2, in &lt;module&gt;
      for record in SeqIO.parse(handle, "fasta"):
  
    File "C:\Users\Anaconda3\lib\site-packages\Bio\SeqIO\__init__.py", line 600, in parse
      for r in i:
  
    File "C:\Users\Anaconda3\lib\site-packages\Bio\SeqIO\FastaIO.py", line 122, in FastaIterator
      for title, sequence in SimpleFastaParser(handle):
  
    File "C:\Users\Anaconda3\lib\site-packages\Bio\SeqIO\FastaIO.py", line 46, in SimpleFastaParser
      if line[0] == "&gt;":
  
  IndexError: index out of range
  </code></pre>