How to generate "a, b, c, and d"?
Ethan Furman
ethan at stoneleaf.us
Thu Dec 15 13:19:51 EST 2011
Tim Chase wrote:
> On 12/15/11 10:48, Roy Smith wrote:
>> I've got a list, ['a', 'b', 'c', 'd']. I want to generate the string,
>> "a, b, c, and d" (I'll settle for no comma after 'c'). Is there some
>> standard way to do this, handling all the special cases?
>>
>> [] ==> ''
>> ['a'] ==> 'a'
>> ['a', 'b'] ==> 'a and b'
>> ['a', 'b', 'c', 'd'] ==> 'a, b, and c'
>>
>> It seems like the kind of thing django.contrib.humanize would handle,
>> but alas, it doesn't.
>
> If you have a list, it's pretty easy as MRAB suggests. For arbitrary
> iterators, it's a bit more complex. Especially with the odd edge-case
> of 2 items where there's no comma before the conjunction (where >2 has
> the comma before the conjunction). If you were willing to forgo the
> Oxford comma, it would tidy up the code a bit. Sample code below
<snip>
Why go through all that instead of just converting the iterator into a
list at the beginning of MRAB's solution and then running with it?
~Ethan~
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