[Python-ideas] Variations on a loop

[Steven Bethard]

On Fri, Aug 29, 2008 at 6:25 PM, Bruce Leban <bruce at leapyear.org> wrote:
>
> On Fri, Aug 29, 2008 at 1:47 PM, David Blaschke <dwblas at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> This idea
>> elif x == funky_empty:
>>       result = 'no data'
>>
>> Can be accomplished with
>> if not len(items):
>>       result = 'no data'
>> which means that part of the proposal can be scratched IMHO.
>
> Not quite: len(items) requires iterating across the entire list which may
> not be necessary or desirable. Plus you may need an intermediate variable to
> store it. I think that's inferior.

If len(items) requires iterating across the entire list, then you're
not using a Python list object, you're using someone else's (poorly
implemented) list data structure. Python lists give len(obj) in O(1).

Steve
-- 
I'm not *in*-sane. Indeed, I am so far *out* of sane that you appear a
tiny blip on the distant coast of sanity.
 --- Bucky Katt, Get Fuzzy