More about variables

[Matthew Hirsch]

Thanks for the advice.  It makes a lot of sense.

Matt







In article <meh9-158D1A.14240006042000 at news.cit.cornell.edu>, Matthew 
Hirsch <meh9 at cornell.edu> wrote:

> 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