[Python-ideas] Should range() == range(0)?

[Terry Reedy]

On 5/6/2012 6:24 PM, Georg Brandl wrote:

> 7. The "default value" is only really useful for types that are best
 > described as "data-like".
 > range is not a data-like type, it's a helper
> for iteration, just as filter or dictviews aren't data-like.

Not knowning your definition of 'data-like', it is hard to respond.

A range is an immutable, indexable, reiterable sequence of regularly 
spaced ints with a definite length. It compactly represents an finite 
but possibly long arithmetic sequence. While mostly used for iteration, 
it is not limited to iteration. It implements the sequence protocol. It 
is not an iterator. It is not dependent on an underlying iterable. It is 
properly documented with the other sequence types.

It is most like a bytes object in being an immutable sequence of ints. 
In that regard, it is different in not restricting the ints to [0,255] 
while restricting the differences to being equal.

(Dict views, especially .keys() are also, to me, somewhat data-like and 
not limited to iteration. But, unlike ranges, they are dependencies.)

-- 
Terry Jan Reedy