Generator question

[Mathias Panzenboeck]

Robert Kern wrote:
> Timothy Wu wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> Using generator recursively is not doing what I expect:
>>
>> def test_gen(x):
>>     yield x
>>     x = x - 1
>>     if x != 0:
>>         test_gen(x)
> 
> The only thing that the last line does is *create* a new generator object. You
> need to actually iterate over it and yield its values. E.g.
> 
> 
> In [2]: def test_gen(x):
>    ...:     yield x
>    ...:     x -= 1
>    ...:     if x != 0:
>    ...:         for y in test_gen(x):
>    ...:             yield y
>    ...:
>    ...:
> 
> In [3]: list(test_gen(3))
> Out[3]: [3, 2, 1]
> 
> 

why not this?

def test_gen(x):
	for y in xrange(x,0,-1):
		yield y

or even better/shorter:

test_gen = lambda x: xrange(x,0,-1)