Python complaints

[Alex Martelli]

> Mike Fletcher wrote:
	[snip]
> I think all functions that operate on single things should be able to
> operate on a list of things and return a list of things. (Are there
> obvious reasons why this paradigm can't work?) Consider,
> 
Isn't "len" one such "obvious reason"...?


> >>> l = [1,2,3]
> >>> m = [l,l]
> >>> len(l)
> 2
> >>> len(m)
> 3
> 
> I want len(m) to return [3,3]. And I want: max(len(m)) to return 3, etc.
> 
But what about len([1, "hello", 2, "foo", 3])?  I want it to
return 5, as it does now.  If it gives me [0. 5. 0. 3. 0] (or
however else it encodes the "length" of a scalar number)
how do I find out that it just gave me 5 elements, which is
all I care about?  Do I hear a suggestion to call len on
the result...?-)


Alex