[Python-ideas] Add list.join() please

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Wed, Jan 30, 2019 at 12:09:55AM +0000, Alex Shafer wrote:

> 2) strings are special and worthy of a "special case" because strings 
> tend to be human readable and are used in all kinds of user interface.

So are ints, floats, bools, lists, tuples, sets, dicts, etc.

We already have a "stringify" function that applies to one object at a 
time. It's spelled str(), or if you prefer a slightly different format, 
repr().

To apply the stringify function of your choice to more than one object, 
you can use a for-loop, or a list comprehension, or a set comprehension, 
or map(). This is called composition of re-usable components, and it is 
a Good Thing.

If you don't like the two built-in stringify functions, you can write 
your own, and they still work with for-loops, comprehensions and map().

Best of all, we're not even limited to strings. Change your mind and 
want floats instead of strings? Because these are re-usable, composable 
components, you don't have to wait for Python 4.3 to get a list 
floatify() method, you can just unplug the str() component and replace 
it with the float() component.


-- 
Steve