for-else

[BJörn Lindqvist]

On Tue, Mar 4, 2008 at 4:17 PM, Carl Banks <pavlovevidence at gmail.com> wrote:
>  > for ...:
>  >     ...
>  > exhausted:
>  >     ...
>  > broken:
>  >     ...
>  >
>  > The meaning is explicit. While "else" seems to mean little there.
>  > So I may like something similar for Python 3.x (or the removal of the
>  > "else").
>
>
>  I would not be opposed to this on its own merits, but there is a
>  rationale behind the name "else".  If you consider a for loop to be a
>  rolled-up if...elif...else statement (situations where this is
>  reasonable tend to be the same ones were else would be useful), then
>  the "else" clause would remain unchanged on the for loop.
>
>  For instance, if you have a (trivial) if...elif...else like this:
>
>  if a == 0:
>     do_task_0()
>  elif a == 1:
>     do_task_1()
>  elif a == 2:
>     do_task_2()
>  else:
>     do_default_task()
>
>  You could roll it up into a for...else statement like this:
>
>  for i in range(3):
>     if a == i:
>         do_task[a]()
>  else:
>     do_default_task()

You forgot the break statement. The else suite will always be executed
in this loop. Kind of proves bearophiles point, for-else is really
tricky.


-- 
mvh Björn