[Tutor] How to use __iter__

[Jia-Yu Aw]

Hi all

I've been learning Classes and have read the documentation on __iter__ but still don't understand how it works. I have two pieces of code: the first is def __iter__, the second is using __iter__. Instead of being an iterator, I'm just using this is a function, which I think is incorrect. Can somebody explain __iter__ and, if it's related, next()?

This is the first. But unlike what it says in the triple quotes, I return a whole list instead of a single shape:

    def __iter__(self):
        """
        Return an iterator that allows you to iterate over the set of
        shapes, one shape at a time
        """
        import copy
        setCopy = copy.copy(self.set)
        shapeList = []
        while len(setCopy) > 0:
            try:
                y = setCopy[0]
                shapeList.append(y)
                setCopy.remove(y)
            except StopIteration:
                break
        return shapeList

The second, how I've used __iter__:

def findLargest(shapes):
    """
    Returns a tuple containing the elements of ShapeSet with the
       largest area.
    shapes: ShapeSet
    """
    ## TO DO
    
    areaList = []
    areaDict = {}
    largestDict = {}
    
    shapeList = shapes.__iter__()
    for s in shapeList:
        areaDict[s] = s.area()
        areaList.append(s.area())
        
    largestArea = max(areaList)
    areaList = [] #re-initialize areaList, cleaning it

    import copy
    dictCopy = copy.copy(areaDict)
    
    for a in areaDict:
        if areaDict[a] != largestArea:
            del dictCopy[a]

    return tuple(dictCopy)

Thanks
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