More about variables

[Matthew Hirsch]

Why create named variables?

I always thought that having 20 lists saved more space than having one 
list of 20 lists.  Maybe I'm wrong.

Thanks for your help,
Matt






In article <3X3H4.16435$0o4.108310 at iad-read.news.verio.net>, 
culliton at clark.net (Tom Culliton) wrote:

> What (or maybe what do you think) you are trying to do?  Most likely
> you would be better off with just a list or tuple if you're dealing
> with and unknown number of data items.  Not everything needs a name,
> and there isn't much difference between:
> 
> v0, v1, v2, v3, v4, v5
> 
> and
> 
> v[0], v[1], v[2], v[3], v[4], v[5]
> 
> Why do you think this variable length collection of data needs
> individual names?
> 
> Now, if after consideration there is still some compelling reason to
> generate names, you can use something like this with a dictionary
> (possibly the one returned by globals()):
> 
> v = {}
> for i in range(number_of_variables):
>         name = "variable%d" % i
>         v[name] = []
> 
> But again, Why?
> 
> In article <meh9-5C17A0.10445406042000 at news.cit.cornell.edu>,
> Matthew Hirsch  <meh9 at cornell.edu> wrote:
> >Hi All,
> >
> >Let's say I had something like:
> >
> >number_of_variables=int(raw_input('Enter number of variables: '))
> >
> >if number_of_variables==1:
> >   variable1=[]
> >elif number_of_variables==2:
> >   variable1=[]
> >   variable2=[]
> >elif number_of_variables==3:
> >   variable1=[]
> >   variable2=[]
> >   variable3=[]
> >elif number_of_variables==4:
> >   variable1=[]
> >   variable2=[]
> >   variable3=[]
> >   variable4=[]
> >elif number_of_variables==5:
> >   variable1=[]
> >   variable2=[]
> >   variable3=[]
> >   variable4=[]
> >   variable5=[]
> >else:
> >   print 'else'
> >
> >Is there a more efficient way of doing this? What if I wanted to create 
> >100 variables (lists).  It doesn't make sense to write an if statement 
> >for that many conditions.
> >
> >Thanks for your help,
> >Matt