New tail recursion decorator

[Carl Banks]

Michele Simionato wrote:
> CONTINUE = object() # sentinel value returned by iterfunc
>
> def tail_recursive(func):
>     """
>     tail_recursive decorator based on Kay Schluehr's recipe
>     http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Cookbook/Python/Recipe/496691
>     """
>     var = dict(in_loop=False, cont=True, argkw='will be set later')
>     # the dictionary is needed since Python closures are read-only
>
>     def iterfunc(*args, **kwd):
>         var["cont"] = not var["cont"]
>         if not var["in_loop"]: # start looping
>             var["in_loop"] = True
>             while True:
>                 res = func(*args,**kwd)
>                 if res is CONTINUE:
>                     args, kwd = var["argkw"]
>                 else:
>                     var["in_loop"] = False
>                     return res
>         else:
>             if var["cont"]:
>                 var["argkw"] = args, kwd
>                 return CONTINUE
>             else:
>                 return func(*args,**kwd)
>     return iterfunc

CONTINUE could be put inside tail_recursive, couldn't it?  And to
squeeze a little more speed out of it, var could be a list (saves a
hash lookup).

Cool decorator.


Carl Banks