[Python-Dev] Retrieve an arbitrary element from a set without removing it

Nick Coghlan ncoghlan at gmail.com
Sat Oct 24 09:19:54 CEST 2009


Ben Finney wrote:
> Which then raises the question “what part of the set does it get?”,
> which the function signature does nothing to answer. I'm proposing that
> a no-parameters ‘set.get’ is needlessly confusing to think about.

The fact that set.get() is just set.pop() without removing the result
from the set seems perfectly straightforward.

> Since the use case is so specific, I would expect the name to be
> specific too, to better match the use case.

The use case is no more specific than set.pop().

Cheers,
Nick.

-- 
Nick Coghlan   |   ncoghlan at gmail.com   |   Brisbane, Australia
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