On 02/02/2015 22:21, Georg Brandl wrote:
On 02/02/2015 11:03 PM, Eugene Toder wrote:
On Mon, Feb 2, 2015 at 4:19 PM, Ryan Gonzalez
mailto:rymg19@gmail.com> wrote: On Mon, Feb 2, 2015 at 1:47 PM, Thomas Kluyver
mailto:thomas@kluyver.me.uk> wrote: max() and min() do behave like this - they accept either a single iterable, or *args - so it's not unprecedented. But I don't see any benefit to adding it to the list() constructor.
Because the maximum/minimum of a single value makes absolutely no sense, but a single-element list does.
Arguably, min and max of a single value is that same value. This is what min() and max() return when you pass them a 1-element sequence. Yes, but that's beside the point. The point is that for max and min it is never needed to write "min(a)" or "max(a)" where a is not a sequence -- since it's the same as just "a".
Georg
In fact, min(3,4) == min((3,4)) == min((3,)) == 3 but min(3) raises an error whereas attempting to create a single-item list should not be an error. Rob Cliffe