Loop-and-a-half (Re: Curious assignment behaviour)

[David Glasser]

Paul Rubin <phr-n2001d at nightsong.com> wrote:

> Just today I had a bug that went something like:
> 
>     n = compute_number_of_items()
>     for i in range(n):
>        try: process_an_item(items[i])
>        except: break
>     update_database('number of items processed = ' % i)
[but for n = 0, i never gets defined]

I'm confused.  Won't this give the wrong answer, anyway?  If you do
process all n correctly, i will be set to n-1.  So you'll have to log
"i+1".  And by this point you might as well just increment a variable
every time you process an item correctly, which is a lot clearer than
using the value of a loop index outside of the loop, in my opinion.

-- 
David Glasser
news at davidglasser.net               http://www.davidglasser.net/