PEP 276 Simple Iterator for ints (fwd)

[David Eppstein]

In article <mailman.1007685070.25864.python-list at python.org>,
 James_Althoff at i2.com wrote:

> I agree with David.  I think there should be an iterator, lightweight
> though it might be.
> 
> for x <= i < y:   # alt. spelling of: for i in xrange(x,y)
> for x <= i <= y:  # alt. spelling of: for i in xrange(x,y+1)
> for x < i < y:    # alt. spelling of: for i in xrange(x+1,y)
> for x < i <= y:   # alt. spelling of: for i in xrange(x+1,y+1)
> 
> (not counting the sys.maxint boundary case).

Also not counting the possibility that x or y are noninteger.

> In any case, it would be nice for the syntax to support the creation of an
> interval-like object that I could pass around, save, and use later (in a
> for-loop, list function, "in" statement, or any other iterator-based
> context).

It seems like the choices are

(1) concise for-loop, verbose interval-like object
    for x <= i < y
    L = [i for x <= i < y]

(2) verbose for-loop, concise interval-like object
    for i in x <= ... < y
    L = (x <= ... < y)

These are not quite the same because of the list/iterator distinction but
the problem that list comprehensions can't be made to return iterators 
instead of lists seems to be a more general one than this.
-- 
David Eppstein       UC Irvine Dept. of Information & Computer Science
eppstein at ics.uci.edu http://www.ics.uci.edu/~eppstein/