Syntax across languages

[Fredrik Lundh]

bearophileHUGS at lycos.com wrote:

> >if you can define the semantics, it's a few lines of code.  if you're not
> sure about the semantics, a built-in won't help you...<
>
> I think the language needs a fast built-in version of it. If something
> is both inside Mathematica and Ruby, then probably it can be useful in
> Python too :-)

numpy already has one:

    http://numeric.scipy.org/numpydoc/numpy-9.html#pgfId-36512

(it's probably there in scipy too, but the scipy docs don't appear to be
freely available. hmm...)

PIL also has one:

    http://www.effbot.org/imagingbook/image.htm#image-getdata-method

there's also one in Tkinter:

    >>> import Tkinter
    >>> Tkinter._flatten(["abc", 1, 2, (3, 4, 5), None, [6, 7, 8, (9,)]])
    ('abc', 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)

to create a generic version, you have to decide which sequences to
treat like sequences, and which sequences you don't want to treat
like sequences...

</F>