itertools.groupby

[Steve Howell]

--- Carsten Haese <carsten at uniqsys.com> wrote:
> [...] It's an abstract code pattern for an abstract
use
> case. 

I question the use of abstract code patterns in
documentation, as they just lead to confusion.  I
really think concrete examples are better in any
circumstance.  

Also, to the OP's original contention, there is no way
that "uniquekeys" is a sensible variable in the overly
abstract example that is provided as an example in
the, er, non-examples portion of the documentation. 
With the abstract non-example that's posted as an
example, the assertion of uniqueness implicit in the
name of the variable doesn't make any sense.


> There is an
> example on the following page, called Examples!
>

The example is useful.  Thank you.
 
> > These docs need work.  Please do not defend them;
> 
> [...]
> To name just one, there's an example of
> itertools.groupby in the last
> code snippet at
>
http://informixdb.blogspot.com/2007/04/power-of-generators-part-two.html
> 

Do we now, or could we, link to this example from the
docs?

> [...] that shouldn't stop you from suggesting
improvements.
> 

I already did in a previous reply.

To repeat myself, I think a concrete example is
beneficial even on the main page:


import itertools

syslog_messages = [
    'out of file descriptors',
    'out of file descriptors',
    'unexpected access',
    'out of file descriptors',
    ]

for message, messages in
itertools.groupby(syslog_messages):
    print message, len(list(messages))

...produces this...

out of file descriptors 2
unexpected access 1
out of file descriptors 1




 
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