How do you refer to an iterator in docs?

[Steve Howell]

On Apr 20, 8:01 pm, Roy Smith <r... at panix.com> wrote:
> In article <4f921a2d$0$29965$c3e8da3$54964... at news.astraweb.com>,
>  Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.pyt... at pearwood.info> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Fri, 20 Apr 2012 09:41:25 -0400, Roy Smith wrote:
>
> > > In article <4f910c3d$0$29965$c3e8da3$54964... at news.astraweb.com>,
> > >  Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.pyt... at pearwood.info> wrote:
>
> > >> I refer you to your subject line:
>
> > >> "How do you refer to an iterator in docs?"
>
> > >> In documentation, I refer to an iterator as an iterator, just as I
> > >> would refer to a list as a list, a dict as a dict, or a string as a
> > >> string.
>
> > > Except that "list of foos" and "sequence of foos" make sense from a
> > > grammar standpoint, but "iterator of foos" does not.  Or maybe it does?
>
> > Why wouldn't it make sense?
>
> Because an iterator isn't a container.  I don't know, maybe it does make
> sense, but my first impression is that it sounds wrong.
>
> A basket of apples is a basket which contains apples, in the same way a
> list contains foos.  But an iterator doesn't contain anything.  You
> wouldn't say, "a spigot of water", because the spigot isn't a container
> holding the water.  It is simply a mechanism for delivering the water in
> a controlled way.

If you don't want to imply a false sense of containment, then you
could say "iterator over foos" as opposed to "iterator of foos."