[Python-Dev] PEP 322: Reverse Iteration

[Guido van Rossum]

> From: Guido van Rossum [mailto:guido at python.org]
> > Such a thing would face zero opposition if it was part of itertools:
> > itertools.revrange([start, ] stop[, step]) makes total sense to me...

[Paul Moore]
> I also like Alex's suggestion of
>     itertools.irange([start,] stop[, step][,reverse=False])
> 
> I'd rather this than a revrange - that feels over-specialised, whereas
> an irange with a reverse keyword parameter seems natural.

Hm, I don't know why it feels that way for you.  It would be more
verbose and I expect this option will always be a *constant*.  (One of
my rules-of-thumb for API design is that if you have a Boolean option
whose value is expected to be always a constant, you've really defined
two methods and API-wise you're better off with two separate methods.
Although there are exceptions.)

> I'd still support this addition to itertools whether or not the
> reversed() builtin was implemented (although with irange, reversed()
> loses a lot of its use cases...)

Exactly: I am proposing this *because* it takes care of most of the
use cases for reversed(), and reversed() doesn't need to be a builtin
then.  (If we can live with importing i[rev]range() from itertools, we
can certainly live with importing the more powerful but less
frequently needed reversed() from somewhere.)

--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)