len() should always return something

[Grant Edwards]

On 2009-07-24, Dr. Phillip M. Feldman <pfeldman at verizon.net> wrote:
>
> Some aspects of the Python design are remarkably clever, while
> others leave me perplexed. Here's an example of the latter:
> Why does len() give an error when applied to an int or float?
> len() should always return something; in particular, when
> applied to a scalar, it should return a value of 1.

If len(7) returned a value of 1, then wouldn't one expect 7[0]
to be valid?  It isn't, so you'd then have to redefine all
types so that they are sequences that can be indexed.  Sounds
like a big mess to me...

[Are there types for which len() returns a value that can't be
indexed?]

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