[Numpy-discussion] Was the range() function ever created?

[Robert Kern]

On Fri, May 24, 2019 at 8:50 PM C W <tmrsg11 at gmail.com> wrote:

> I can't be the first person who asked about range() that calculates the
> *actual* range of two numbers.
>
> I have not used numpy or pandas long enough to know, but how has it been
> dealt with before?
>

First, through `describe()`, then they added `value_range()`, then they
deprecated `value_range()` in favor of `describe()` again.

https://github.com/pandas-dev/pandas/commit/e66d25e9f082c93bb4bab3caf2a4fdc8fe904d55
http://pandas.pydata.org/pandas-docs/version/0.16.0/whatsnew.html#removal-of-prior-version-deprecations-changes

You can ask on the pandas-dev mailing list why:
https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/pandas-dev

As for numpy, trying to come up with the right semantics for the shape of
the output is usually when such discussions die. Functions like a
statistical range calculation are expected to be like `min()` and `max()`
and allow us to apply them axis-wise (e.g. just down columns or just across
rows, or more any other axis in an N-D array). Odds are, the way that we'll
pack the two results into a single output will probably not be what you
want in half of the cases, so you'll just have to unpack anyways, and at
that point, it's just not *that* much more convenient than calling `min()`
and `max()` separately. So every time we write `xmin, xmax = x.min(),
x.max()`, we grumble a little bit, but it's just a grumble, not a
significant pain.

pandas has other considerations, but you'll have to ask them.

-- 
Robert Kern
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