frange() question

[Carsten Haese]

On Sat, 2007-09-22 at 07:27 +0000, John J. Lee wrote:
> Carsten Haese <carsten at uniqsys.com> writes:
> 
> > On Thu, 2007-09-20 at 18:55 +0000, John J. Lee wrote:
> >> Functions are never generators, senso stricto.  There are "generator
> >> functions", which *return* (or yield) generators when you call them.
> >
> > Actually, a generator function is a function that returns a generator.
> 
> Read what I wrote again.  What makes you begin your sentence with
> "Actually", rather than "Putting it another way"?

I was attempting to correct your interjection "(or yield)." A generator
function doesn't yield a generator; it returns a generator that yields
sequence values.

The second half of my post illustrates a difference of opinion about
what constitutes a generator function. You state that frange() is not a
generator function because it doesn't use yield, but it behaves like
one. My point is that it *is* a generator function because the generator
expression is merely syntactic sugar for an equivalent for/yield loop.

Of course, the distinction of whether frange() *is* a generator function
or merely *behaves* as one is immaterial in practice, and we can both be
right in the absence of a formal definition of what a generator function
is. PEP 255 says "A function that contains a yield statement is called a
generator function," but that was written before generator expressions
were introduced.

HTH,

-- 
Carsten Haese
http://informixdb.sourceforge.net