Conventions for dummy name (was: for loop without variable)

[Ben Finney]

"Diez B. Roggisch" <deets at nospam.web.de> writes:

> The underscore is used as "discarded" identifier. So maybe
> 
> for _ in xrange(10):
>     ...

The problem with the '_' name is that it is already well-known and
long-used existing convention for an entirely unrelated purpose: in
the 'gettext' i18n library, the '_' function to get the
locally-translated version of a text string.

Since the number of programs that need to use something like 'gettext'
(and therefore use the '_' function) is likely only to increase, it
seems foolish to set one's program up for a conflict with that
established usage.

I've seen 'dummy' used as a "don't care about this value" name in
other Python code. That seems more readable, more explicit, and less
likely to conflict with existing conventions.

-- 
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Ben Finney