dict.items() vs dict.iteritems and similar questions

[Steve Holden]

bearophileHUGS at lycos.com wrote:
> Laurent Pointal:
>> you may prefer range/items when processing of the result
>> value explicitly need a list (ex. calculate its length)
> 
> Creating a very long list just to know the len of an iterator is
> barbaric, so sometimes I use this:
> 
> def leniter(iterator):
>     if hasattr(iterator, "__len__"):
>         return len(iterator)
>     nelements = 0
>     for _ in iterator:
>         nelements += 1
>     return nelements
> 
Of course this is a little like the Heisenberg uncertainty principle if 
the iterator has no __len__ attribute - once you know how long it is you 
no longer have access to the elements. Or did I miss something?

regards
  Steve
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