Introducing the "for" loop
Terry Reedy
tjreedy at udel.edu
Fri Oct 6 12:11:06 EDT 2017
On 10/6/2017 8:44 AM, ROGER GRAYDON CHRISTMAN wrote:
> Despite the documentation, I would still be tempted to say that range is a
> function.
It is, *according* to the documentation. Built-in classes are included
in Library Reference, Ch. 2, Built-in Functions. Changing that to
"Built-in Functions and Classes" has been proposed (perhaps by me) and
rejected.
> Taking duck-typing to the meta-level, every time I use range, I use its name
> followed
> by a pair of parentheses enclosing one to three parameters, and I get back an
> immutable sequence object. It sure looks like a function to me.
In the standard mathematical sense it is, more so than instances of
classes <function> or <built-in function), such as print, that operate
mainly by side effects.
> I would similarly say that map is a function, or an iterator generator
> I write myself with yield statements is a function,
Functions with 'yield' are 'generator functions'
> both of which also return sequences.
Iterators are mutable representatives of sequences, but cannot be indexed.
> It is not clear to me what the difference really is between my conception
> and the official definition -- is it a question about whether it returns a
> first-class object?
No. All python callables (functions in the broad sense) return objects.
> Or more simply, what is the clear and obvious distinction that I can give to my
> non-scientific laypeople about why range isn't a function, if it looks like one?
It is a function, in the usual sense not specific to Python, that is
specifically a Python class. It is not just a function. It is a
function that returns an instance of itself when called. This is the
distinguishing feature of classes as functions (callables).
--
Terry Jan Reedy
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