[Python-Dev] More imformative iterator representations

[Bob Ippolito]

On Apr 6, 2004, at 10:00 PM, Robert Brewer wrote:

> Raymond Hettinger wrote:
>> Q:  Are there any other candidate output formats?
>> A:  Yes, we could add length information for a more mathematical style
>> output:
>>
>>     reversed(['h', 'g', 'f', ... to 8 objects])
>
> The very presence of __len__ might be a strong argument for providing
> the new repr, and its absence an indicator to avoid such.

This is essentially getting back to what Armin was saying.. if 
iterators act more like lists, they will be easier to user and will 
open up some new doors for optimization potential.  Adding a way to get 
the length of some iterators essentially makes them list-like or 
tuple-like.

-bob