Iterator length

[Gabriel Genellina]

At Thursday 18/1/2007 20:26, bearophileHUGS at lycos.com wrote:

>def leniter(iterator):
>     """leniter(iterator): return the length of an iterator,
>     consuming it."""
>     if hasattr(iterator, "__len__"):
>         return len(iterator)
>     nelements = 0
>     for _ in iterator:
>         nelements += 1
>     return nelements
>
>Is it a good idea to extend the functionalities of the built-in len
>function to cover such situation too?

I don't think so, because it may consume the iterator, and that's a 
big side effect that one would not expect from builtin len()


-- 
Gabriel Genellina
Softlab SRL 


	

	
		
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