Iterator question

[Terry Reedy]

"Neal D. Becker" <nbecker at hns.com> wrote in message
news:mailman.1053114567.26584.python-list at python.org...
> I was wondering if python could imitiate the c++ stl copy function,
using
> python iterators.  It looks like the answer is no, because iterators
only
> support next(), and next returns an "rvalue", not an "lvalue", so
there is
> no way to assign through an iterator.  Is this correct?

Yes.  The intention is that iterators produce and the iteree/caller
consumes.  They were specifically designed for 'for item in iterable:
...' Of course, iterators *could* produce strings for getattr() calls
or ints for indexed assignments.  And you use loops in conjuction with
a class where the .next() method takes and consumes an argument (and
returns nothing).  But it is less confusing to give a push method a
different name, like writeline().

Terry J. Reedy