stylistic question -- optional return value

[dougfort]

On Wed, 28 August 2002, Andrew Koenig wrote:

> 
> Suppose I have a function that sometimes returns one value and sometimes
> returns two.  What's the cleanest way to define such an interface?
> 
> For the sake of this discussion, I'll use x to refer to the value that
> is always returned and y to refer to the optional value.

How about this:

class Result:
    pass

def the_function:
    result = Result();
    result.x = 42
    if some-condition:
        result.y = "aha!"
    return result

Doug Fort <dougfort at dougfort.net>
http://www.dougfort.net