[Python-Dev] Built in objects supporting slices

[Alex Martelli]

On Sunday 28 April 2002 15:20, Guido van Rossum wrote:
> > At the moment, built in objects such as lists don't support the slice
> > notaton l[a:b:c]. Would there be support for including this in Python
	...
> Yes.  No PEP is needed, but I'm -0 on the idea -- I don't see what use
> there is for this besides theoretical neatness; I'm sure it
> complicates a lot of code.
>
> IOW What's the use case?

If I understood the c.l.py discussion correctly, one key issue is
with documentation -- currently, in:

http://www.python.org/dev/doc/devel/ref/sequence-types.html

the "right" way for a contained object to support slicing is said
to be through __getitem__ (with a slice argument), while
__getslice__ is said to be supported only for backwards
compatibility.  If you think __getslice__ is best, then that page
should be edited accordingly; otherwise, built-in sequences
should probably respect the same "right way" as others.

The only use-case I would probably use substantially is a step
of -1 for reverse looping.  I do see in my existing code some number
of: "for i in range(len(L)-1, 0, -1):" followed by use of L[i], and
the like, that would be "smoother" as "for item in L[::-1]:".  Not
a huge win, for sure, but not terrible, it would seem to me.  I see
no such immediate application for other steps, although Python's
standard libraries do have some cases with a step of 2 that might
use a step-2 slice.

So, the benefits are admittedly modest, but, it seems to me, > 0.


Alex