[Python-Dev] pre-PEP: Resource-Release Support for Generators

[Armin Rigo]

Hello,

(My reply didn't seem to have reached python-dev... second try.)

On Tue, Aug 26, 2003 at 01:50:52PM -0700, Guido van Rossum wrote:
> Another comment on Samuele's PEP: It is sort of sad that the *user* of
> a generator has to know that the generator's close() must be called.
> Normally, the beauty of using a try/finally for cleanup is that your
> callers don't need to know about it.  But I see no way around this.

What about letting the 'for' handle this? It's the most common way generators
are used. When a 'for' loop on a generator-iterator finishes it would call the
close() method of the iterator, which on generators would (say) simulate a 
return from the latest 'yield'.

Well, close() might not be such a good name because it would probably break
exsiting code (e.g. closing files unexpectedly), but __exit__() might do. In
other words we could import some of the proposed functionality of the 'with'
keyword (PEP 310) into 'for'. I think it makes sense because 'for' is already
defined in term of implicit calls to next(), the only method of iterators; so
if a second method is added, 'for' can be taught about it too.


Armin