sum() requires number, not simply __add__
Buck Golemon
buck at yelp.com
Thu Feb 23 16:23:45 EST 2012
On Feb 23, 1:19 pm, Buck Golemon <b... at yelp.com> wrote:
> I feel like the design of sum() is inconsistent with other language
> features of python. Often python doesn't require a specific type, only
> that the type implement certain methods.
>
> Given a class that implements __add__ why should sum() not be able to
> operate on that class?
>
> We can fix this in a backward-compatible way, I believe.
>
> Demonstration:
> I'd expect these two error messages to be identical, but they are
> not.
>
> >>> class C(object): pass
> >>> c = C()
> >>> sum((c,c))
> TypeError: unsupported operand type(s) for +: 'int' and 'C'
> >>> c + c
> TypeError: unsupported operand type(s) for +: 'C' and 'C'
Proposal:
def sum(values,
base=0):
values =
iter(values)
try:
result = values.next()
except StopIteration:
return base
for value in values:
result += value
return result
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