[Python-ideas] clear() method for lists

[Gerald Britton]

On Fri, Feb 5, 2010 at 4:16 PM, Guido van Rossum <guido at python.org> wrote:
> On Fri, Feb 5, 2010 at 1:09 PM, Raymond Hettinger
> <raymond.hettinger at gmail.com> wrote:
>> ISTM, the language moratorium would preclude this change.
>
> Oops, you're right. Scratch the go-ahead. :-(

So does this mean I should bring it up again for the next round?

>
> While PEP 3003 allows case-by-case exemptions for adding methods to
> built-in objects, I think this isn't one of those cases, since the
> work-around sure is simple enough, and has been in the language for 20
> years now. ;-)
>
>> Also, since it doesn't actually add any new functionality,
>> it is more of a documentation issue, teaching basic python idioms:
>>
>>    del s[:]
>> or
>>    s[:] = []
>
> Though it's a common-enough special case that it shouldn't need slice
> manipulations, which are a bit of an acquired taste. I probably would
> have added this if I'd anticipated dict.clear(), which wasn't always
> part of the language.
>
> --Guido
>
>> Raymond
>>
>> On Feb 5, 2010, at 11:39 AM, Gerald Britton wrote:
>>
>>> In the list archives, this thread
>>>
>>>    http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-ideas/2009-April/003897.html
>>>
>>> discusses adding a clear() method to list objects, to complement those
>>> available for sets and dictionaries.  Later in the thread:
>>>
>>>    http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-ideas/2009-April/003933.html
>>>
>>> Christian Heimes provided a patch to do it and R. H. commented that
>>> all it would take is Guido's blessing.
>>>
>>> So, I'm wondering, can we do this?  What are the steps needed to ask
>>> this work to be blessed?
>>>
>>> --
>>> Gerald Britton
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Python-ideas mailing list
>>> Python-ideas at python.org
>>> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-ideas
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Python-ideas mailing list
>> Python-ideas at python.org
>> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-ideas
>>
>
>
>
> --
> --Guido van Rossum (python.org/~guido)
>



-- 
Gerald Britton