On Sat, 5 Mar 2022 at 04:34, Christopher Barker <pythonchb@gmail.com> wrote:
In the status quo, we have a filtered loop written as:
for item in items: if condition: block
The thing is, if block is more than a couple lines, you need to look down to see if there’s an else or any number of elif blocks down there— so this isn’t a clear expression of a filtered iteration after all. Which is why I suggested that:
for item in items: if not condition: continue block
Would be the more direct expression of "filtered iteration" -- still not a whole lot of code, but a bit more awkward.
The other thing that I think is relevant is that comprehensions already have a filtering option -- so while new syntax technically. this proposal would be familiar and create a bit more consistency in the language.
Another half formed idea:
Comprehension can express map-like behavior or map and filter behavior, but no way to filter without a do nothing map.
e.g if you want to only filter, you need to do:
(item for item in items if condition)
I wonder if there's a way to not need to the "item for item" wasted text:
(Item in items if condition) and [item in items if condition] maybe??
it's not legal syntax now. That would then allow:
Tempting, very tempting. I've been in the situation of wanting this before. Without the word "for", though, it doesn't say that it's a loop, and "item in items" is a condition, "if" can be used as part of an if/else expression, and overall, this is dangerously close to valid syntax. What if omitting the value were to automatically use the loop iterator? [for item in items if condition] But at this point it's not really saving much. ChrisA