On Mon, Oct 3, 2011 at 5:57 AM, Chris Rebert
This could be one of those instances where Python is better off leaving people to write their own short one-off functions to get the /exact/ behavior desired in their individual circumstances.
+1 We get into similar discussions when it comes to higher order itertools. Eventually, there are enough subtle variations that it becomes a better option to let users write their own utility functions. In this case, there are at least 2 useful variants: def convert(target_type, obj, default) if obj: return target_type(obj) return default def try_convert(target_type, obj, default, ignored=(TypeError,)) try: return target_type(obj) except ignored: return default Exceptions potentially ignored include TypeError, AttributeError and ValueError. However, you may also want to include logging so that you can go through the logs later to find data that needs cleaning. Except even in Dirkjan's example code, we see cases that don't fit either model (they're comparing against a *particular* value and otherwise just calling float()). The question is whether there is a useful alternative that is as general purpose as getattr/3 (which ignores AttributeError) and dict.get/2 (which ignores KeyError). However, I think there are too many variations in conversion function APIs and the way are used for that to be of sufficiently general use - we'd be adding something new that everyone has to learn, but far too much of the time they'd have to do their own conversion anyway. I'd sooner see a getitem/3 builtin that could be used to ignore any LookupError the way dict.get/3 allows KeyError to be ignored. Cheers, Nick. -- Nick Coghlan | ncoghlan@gmail.com | Brisbane, Australia