[Python-Dev] Re: PEP 279

[James Althoff]

Trying again without all the nasty HTML -- apologies to all.


[David Abrahams]
> . . . I want to put in another plug for itemize(),

Well, since we're doing post-Pronouncement fantasizing . . .

here's one more plug for "itemize".

Noting that

    for k,v in adict.iteritems():

is probably as useful as

    for i,v in enumerate(aseq):

why not change the spec to:

>>> def itemize(iterable):
...     # use iteritems if defined
...     try:
...         for item in iterable.iteritems(): yield item
...     except AttributeError: pass
...     # and then everything as before
...     i = 0
...     iterator = iter(iterable)
...     while 1:
...         yield i,iterator.next()
...         i += 1
...

So "itemize(iterable)" returns an iterator that yields (k,v) pairs from the
iterable.iteritems() method if defined, else pairs generated by associating
0,1,...,n-1 with n values from iter(iterable).

This allows

    for k,v in itemize(adict_or_aseq):

to be written uniformly for dicts and seqs.

And makes

    list(itemize(adict)) == adict.items()

work, removing one of the objections to the name "itemize".

Also, if one were to need, for example, a sequence whose indices start at 1
instead of 0, one could define a  sequence class that implements iteritems
and objects of said class would work just fine with "itemize".

Jim