[Python-Dev] List insert at index that is well out of range - behaves like append

[Harish Tech]

Hi ,

     Sorry for that mistake . Now I have posted it in python-list mailing
list .

Thanks for your guidance.

Harish

On Mon, Sep 15, 2014 at 5:01 PM, Tal Einat <taleinat at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Mon, Sep 15, 2014 at 6:18 AM, Harish Tech <technews.full at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > I had a list
> >
> >  a = [1, 2, 3]
> >
> > when I did
> >
> > a.insert(100, 100)
> >
> > [1, 2, 3, 100]
> >
> > as list was originally of size 4 and I was trying to insert value at
> index
> > 100 , it behaved like append instead of throwing any errors as I was
> trying
> > to insert in an index that did not even existed .
> >
> >
> > Should it not throw
> >
> >
> > IndexError: list assignment index out of range
> >
> >
> > exception as it throws when I attempt doing
> >
> >
> > a[100] = 100
> >
> > Question : 1. Any idea Why has it been designed to silently handle this
> > instead of informing the user with an exception ?
> >
> >
> > Personal Opinion : Lets see how other dynamic languages behave in such a
> > situation : Ruby :
> >
> >
> >     > a = [1, 2]
> >
> >     > a[100] = 100
> >
> >     > a
> >
> >  => [1, 2, nil, nil, nil, nil, nil, nil, nil, nil, nil, nil, nil, nil,
> nil,
> > nil, nil, nil, nil, nil, nil, nil, nil, nil, nil, nil, nil, nil, nil,
> nil,
> > nil, nil, nil, nil, nil, nil, nil, nil, nil, nil, nil, nil, nil, nil,
> nil,
> > nil, nil, nil, nil, nil, nil, nil, nil, nil, nil, nil, nil, nil, nil,
> nil,
> > nil, nil, nil, nil, nil, nil, nil, nil, nil, nil, nil, nil, nil, nil,
> nil,
> > nil, nil, nil, nil, nil, nil, nil, nil, nil, nil, nil, nil, nil, nil,
> nil,
> > nil, nil, nil, nil, nil, nil, nil, nil, nil, nil, 100]
> >
> > The way ruby handles this is pretty clear and sounds meaningful (and
> this is
> > how I expected to behave and it behaved as per my expectation) at least
> to
> > me . So what I felt was either it should throw exception or do the way
> ruby
> > handles it .
> >
> >
> > Is ruby way of handling not the obvious way ?
> >
> > I even raised it in stackoverflow
> >
> http://stackoverflow.com/questions/25840177/list-insert-at-index-that-is-well-out-of-range-behaves-like-append
> >
> > and got some responses .
>
> Hello Harish,
>
> The appropriate place to ask questions like this is python-list [1],
> or perhaps Stack Overflow.
>
> If you meant to suggest changing the behavior of Python in such cases,
> you should first discuss this on python-list, and then post a clearly
> written suggestion to python-ideas [2].
>
> This list, python-dev, is used for discussing the development *of* the
> Python language.
>
> See the "Python Mailing Lists" page [3] for more information.
>
> Regards,
> - Tal Einat
>
> ..[1]: http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
> ..[2]: http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-ideas
> ..[3]: https://www.python.org/community/lists/
>
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