comprehensions was Re: Switch statements again

[Beni Cherniavsky]

On 2003-01-19, Dave Brueck wrote:

> On Sun, 19 Jan 2003, Beni Cherniavsky wrote:
> >
> > > At the time, lexical nesting didn't yet exist in Python either.
> > > The case for "magically local" bindings has gotten stronger since
> > > lexical nesting was added, but now we've got a backwards
> > > compatibility burden too.
> > >
> > There is one central use for leaving the binding alive in for loops:
> > when you can exit it prematurely and want to record where you did.
> > This is one thing missing from list comprehensions - a way to break in
> > the middle.
>
> I dunno - IMO a list comprehension is for building a list from another
> list, so the only legitimate reasons for breaking out prematurely would
> be some sort of optimization on processing ordered lists or maybe some
> sort of "select first n occurences of f(x)" or something - cases not
> common enough to warrant special list comp behavior since such needs can
> be handled much better by plain for loops.
>
Well, you are probably right.  It's usually simpler to just find the place
you need and splice (before or after the comprehension), or use a loop.

> > Especially needed when iterating over infinite interators
>
> But why use a list comprehension for that?
>
Because you will be able to <wink> (currently you can't because it will
never stop [1]_).  Actually you will want to use generator comprehensions
for that.  Anyway, you'll frequently need some consvenient way to make
finite sequences from an infinite generators.

.. [1] This might solve it now::

    def xwhile(func, iterable):
        for x in iterable:
	    if not func(x):
	       break
            yield x

yield-reply(post)-for-post-in-newsgroup-
                 -if-interesting-
                 -while-have-time-ly y'rs
    Beni Cherniavsky <cben at tx.technion.ac.il>