[Python-Dev] iterable slices

[Alex Martelli]

On Thursday 02 May 2002 08:04, Damien Morton wrote:
	...
> Could the notation   a:b:c:d:... be generalised, with slices becoming a
> kind of tuple. For backwards compatability, the first three elements of
> the tuple could be accessed using the start, stop, step attributes.
	...
> {1, 2, 3} -> dict([slice(1), slice(2), slice(3)]}
>
> A slice on its own would be writen:
>
> (1:2:3)  -> slice(1,2,3)
>
> A 1-element slice might be written similarily to a 1-element tuple:
> (1:) -> slice(1)

And presumably None could be omitted, e.g. (:1) as slice(None,1).

Related but somewhat orthogonal to this idea -- I'm starting to think
that slices should be iterable, with iter(slice(a,b,c)) yielding exactly
the same numbers as iter(range(a,b,c)) or iter(xrange(a,b,c)).  If any
such abbreviated notation existed for slices, then "for i in (:6):" might
work.  Risks: perhaps error-prone ("for i in {:6}:", "for i in (6:):", etc,
might be likely typos yielding unexpected behavior); no idea of what
behavior would be expected of "for i in (a:b:c:d:e):".


Alex