Wild idea of the day: Merge the code for xrange() into slice(). So that old code will work, make the word 'xrange' a synonym for 'slice' >>> x = xrange(0,10,2) >>> s = slice(0,10,2) >>> [m for m in dir(x) if m not in dir(s)] ['__getitem__', '__iter__', '__len__'] >>> [m for m in dir(s) if m not in dir(x)] ['__cmp__', 'start', 'step', 'stop'] Raymond Hettinger 'regnitteh dnomyar'[::-1]