[Newbie] List from a generator function

[Peter Otten]

Ernesto García García wrote:

> I'm sure there is a better way to do this:
> 
> [random.choice(possible_notes) for x in range(length)]

Note that "generator" has a fixed meaning in Python:
http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0255/

For generators you can use

list(itertools.islice(gen()), length)

What you need then would be a way to turn an ordinary function into a
generator:

>>> def make_gen(fun, *args, **kw):
...     def gen():
...             while 1:
...                     yield fun(*args, **kw)
...     return gen()
...
>>> from random import choice
>>> from itertools import islice
>>> length = 7
>>> sample = "abcde"
>>> list(islice(make_gen(choice, sample), length))
['e', 'b', 'b', 'a', 'b', 'b', 'a']

Peter