sum for sequences?

[Steve Howell]

On Mar 29, 4:19 pm, Steven D'Aprano <st... at REMOVE-THIS-
cybersource.com.au> wrote:
> On Mon, 29 Mar 2010 07:40:54 -0700, Patrick Maupin wrote:
> > On Mar 28, 9:45 pm, Steven D'Aprano
> > <ste... at REMOVE.THIS.cybersource.com.au> wrote:
> >> And what about tuples? And subclasses of list/tuples? How many
> >> different types need to be optimized?
>
> > One of the beautiful things about Python is that, for most things, there
> > are few surprises for even new users.  "There should be one obvious way
> > to do it" for the user means that, sometimes, under the hood, there are
> > a lot of special cases for the implementers.
>
> It never ceases to amaze me how often people simply don't understand this.
>
> "There should be one obvious way to do it" is the opposite of "NO obvious
> way", not of "many ways which may or may not be obvious". The complete
> quote from the Zen makes that clear:
>
> There should be one-- and preferably ONLY one --obvious way to do it.
> [Emphasis added]
>
> And don't forget the next line:
>
> Although that way may not be obvious at first unless you're Dutch.
>
> Python is under no compulsion to make "the obvious way" obvious to anyone
> except Guido. It's a bonus if it happens to be obvious to newbies, not a
> requirement.
>
> And besides, what is "it" you're talking about?
>
> * Adding integers, decimals or fractions, or floats with a low
>   requirement for precision and accuracy? Use sum.
>
> * Adding floats with a high requirement for precision and accuracy?
>   Use math.fsum.
>
> * Concatenating strings? Use ''.join.
>
> * Joining lists? Use [].extend.
>
> * Iterating over an arbitrary sequence of arbitrary sequences?
>   Use itertools.chain.
>
> That's five different "its", and five obvious ways to do them.
>

Let's go through them...

> * Adding integers, decimals or fractions, or floats with a low
>   requirement for precision and accuracy? Use sum.
>

Pretty obvious.

 >>> sum([1, 2, 3])
 6



> * Adding floats with a high requirement for precision and accuracy?
>   Use math.fsum.
>

Mostly obvious.

 >>> fsum([1.234534665989, 2.987, 3])
 Traceback (most recent call last):
   File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
 NameError: name 'fsum' is not defined
 >>> import math
 >>> math.fsum([1.234534665989, 2.987, 3])
 7.2215346659890001


> * Concatenating strings? Use ''.join.


Common pitfall:

 >>> ['abc', 'def', 'ghi'].join()
 Traceback (most recent call last):
   File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
 AttributeError: 'list' object has no attribute 'join'
 >>> ''.join(['abc', 'def', 'ghi'])
 'abcdefghi'


> * Joining lists? Use [].extend.

Obvious, yes.  Convenient?  Not really.

 >>> start = []
 >>> for list in [[1, 2], [3, 4]]:
 ...   start.extend(list)
 ...
 >>> start
 [1, 2, 3, 4]

> * Iterating over an arbitrary sequence of arbitrary sequences?
>   Use itertools.chain.

 >>> group1 = ['al', 'bob']
 >>> group2 = ['cal']
 >>> groups = [group1, group2]

Obvious if you are Dutch...

 >>> itertools.chain(groups)
 Traceback (most recent call last):
   File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
 NameError: name 'itertools' is not defined
 >>> import itertools
 >>> itertools.chain(groups)
 <itertools.chain object at 0x9a9658c>
 >>> len(itertools.chain(groups))
 Traceback (most recent call last):
   File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
 TypeError: object of type 'itertools.chain' has no len()
 >>> len(list(itertools.chain(groups)))
 2
 >>> len(list(itertools.chain(*groups)))
 3

So you have sum, fsum, join, extend, and chain.

Sum is builtin, but you have to import fsum from math and chain from
itertools.

Join is actually a method on strings, not sequences.

Chain can take multiple lists, or you can use the splat operator on a
list of lists.

Extend is actually a method on lists, and it only takes one list, not
multiple ones.

 >>> [].extend(*groups)
 Traceback (most recent call last):
   File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
 TypeError: extend() takes exactly one argument (2 given)

Just commit all that to memory, and enjoy the productivity of using a
high level language! ;)