More random python observations from a perl programmer

[Chad Netzer]

Tom Christiansen wrote:

> You're right.  I should have written
>
>     new = []
>     for i in range(0,len(old)):
>         new[i] = old[i]
>
> And that certainly is parallel to the dictionary case.  Dictionary
> auto-allocate.  Lists don't.

Again, why not just use new.append(old[i])?  If you REALLY want to
write it with an equals sign or start the indexing at other than zero, then
declare new as a dictionary (integers are valid keys since they are non
mutable)

old = [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9]
new={}
for i in range(4, len(old)):
   new[i] = old[i]

Autoallocating arrays, or arrays with holes, are simply Python dicts.
Of course, having something like new.sortedprint() might be nice,
but it is easy to define a function.

def sortedprint(dict):
   spam = dict.keys()
   spam.sort()    # What, you've never heard of the amazing spamsort?
   for i in spam:
      print dict[i],
   print


Chad Netzer
chad at vision.arc.nasa.gov