Counting nested loop iterations

[Fredrik Lundh]

Joel Hedlund wrote:

> I've been thinking about these nested generator expressions and list
> comprehensions. How come we write:
>
> a for b in c for a in b
>
> instead of
>
> a for a in b for b in c
>
> More detailed example follows below.
>
> I feel the latter variant is more intuitive. Could anyone please explain the
> fault of my logic or explain how I should be thinking about this?

    out = [a for b in c for a in b]

can be written

    out = [a
        for b in c
            for a in b]

which is equivalent to

    out = []
    for b in c:
        for a in b:
            out.append(a)

in other words, a list comprehension works exactly like an ordinary for
loop, except that the important thing (the expression) is moved to the
beginning of the statement.

</F>