[Python-ideas] Vectorization [was Re: Add list.join() please]

[David Mertz]

>
> I think it should follow the pre-existing behaviour of list, set, tuple,
> etc.
>
>  >>> Vector("hello")
> <Vector of ['h', 'e', 'l', 'l', 'o']>
>

I try to keep the underlying datatype of the wrapped collection as much
as possible.  Casting a string to a list changes that.

>>> Vector(d)
<Vector of ['Monday', 'Tuesday', 'Wednesday']>
>>> Vector(tuple(d))
<Vector of ('Monday', 'Tuesday', 'Wednesday')>
>>> Vector(set(d))
<Vector of {'Wednesday', 'Monday', 'Tuesday'}>
>>> from collections import deque
>>> Vector(deque(d))
<Vector of deque(['Monday', 'Tuesday', 'Wednesday'])>


Strings are already a Collection, there is not firm need cast them to a
list to live inside a Vector.  I like the idea of maintaining the original
type if someone wants it back later (possibly after transformations of the
values).

Why is it pointless for a vector, but not for a list?
>

I guess it really isn't.  I was thinking of just .upper() and .lower()
where upper/lower-casing each individual letter is the same as doing so to
the whole string.  But for .replace() or .count() or .title() or
.swapcase() the meaning is very different if it is letter-at-a-time.

I guess a string gets unstringified pretty quickly no matter what though.
E.g. this seems like right behavior once we transform something:

>>> vstr = Vector('Monday')
>>> vstr
<Vector of 'Monday'>
>>> vstr.upper()
<Vector of "['M', 'O', 'N', 'D', 'A', 'Y']">


I dunno... I suppose I *could* do `self._it = "".join(self._it)` whenever I
do a transform on a string to keep the underlying iterable as a string.
But the point of a Vector really is sequences of strings not sequences of
characters.

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