Better writing in python

[Marc 'BlackJack' Rintsch]

On Wed, 24 Oct 2007 16:04:28 +0200, A.T.Hofkamp wrote:

>> On 2007-10-24, Alexandre Badez <alexandre.badez at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I'm just wondering, if I could write a in a "better" way this
>> code
>>
>> lMandatory = []
>> lOptional = []
>> for arg in cls.dArguments:
>>   if arg is True:
>>     lMandatory.append(arg)
>>   else:
>>     lOptional.append(arg)
>> return (lMandatory, lOptional)
>>
>> I think there is a better way, but I can't see how...
> 
> You can do it shorter, not sure that it also qualifies as better....
> 
> d = { True : [] , False : [] }
> for arg in cls.arguments:
>   d[arg == True].append(arg)
> 
> return d[True], d[False]
> 
> One potential problem here is that 'arg == True' may not be the same as 'if
> arg:'. I couldn't come up with a better equivalent expression, maybe one of the
> other readers knows more about this?

With ``if arg:`` the interpreter asks `arg` for its "boolean value".  So a
better way would be:

    d[bool(arg)].append(arg)

As `True` and `False` are instances of `int` with the values 1 and 0 it's
possible to replace the dictionary by a list:

tmp = [[], []]
for arg in cls.arguments:
    tmp[bool(arg)].append(arg)
return tmp[1], tmp[0]

Maybe that's nicer.  Maybe not.

Ciao,
	Marc 'BlackJack' Rintsch