xrange question

[Grant Edwards]

In article <mailman.989210650.24674.python-list at python.org>, Paul Prescod wrote:
>John Flynn wrote:
>
>> Firstly, I can't see how 'xrange' does anything that can't be done more
>> efficiently with 'while'. I think xrange must have a purpose I'm not seeing.
>
>xrange gives you a simple way to do a for-loop over a large array. You
>could do a while instead but you can always replace for-loops with while
>loops. But for-loops are usually clearer than while-loops because the
>one statement does variable declaration, initialization and iteration.

Definitely.  For the past year or so I've been maintianing C
code written by somebody who didn't believe in for() loops.
Everything is a while loop:

  i = 0;
  while (i<FooBar)
    {
      [...]
      i += 1;
    }

I've not idea why they were written that way. I change them
into for() loops as I run accross them, and it makes things
much easer to understand.

-- 
Grant Edwards                   grante             Yow!  I wonder if I should
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