[Python-Dev] cpython (2.7): note Ellipsis syntax

[Nick Coghlan]

On Sun, Jul 31, 2011 at 4:28 PM, Georg Brandl <g.brandl at gmx.net> wrote:
> (Also, there must have been some reason to make "..." available everywhere
> for Python 3.)

Not really - it just let us ditch some special casing in the
compilation toolchain that *restricted* it to being used in subscripts
(i.e. we were looking at the question from the "is there a good
rationale for keeping this arbitrary restriction?" angle).

Functionality wise, you could already write 'Ellipsis' everywhere you
would otherwise have written '...' and you still have to write ':' as
'slice(None)' outside the context of a subscript operation.

Although, as Raymond notes, it can make a nice substitute for 'pass'
as a placeholder statement, and can also be used as a placeholder
expression.

Cheers,
Nick.

-- 
Nick Coghlan   |   ncoghlan at gmail.com   |   Brisbane, Australia