Python garbage collector/memory manager behaving strangely

[Dieter Maurer]

aahz at pythoncraft.com (Aahz) writes:

> ...
>>>>     def readlines(f):
>>>>         lines = []
>>>>         while "f is not empty":
>>>>             line = f.readline()
>>>>             if not line: break
>>>>             if len(line) > 2 and line[-2:] == '|\n':
>>>>                 lines.append(line)
>>>>                 yield ''.join(lines)
>>>>                 lines = []
>>>>             else:
>>>>                 lines.append(line)
>>> 
>>> There's a few changes I'd make:
>>> I'd change the name to something else, so as not to shadow the built-in,
> ...
> Actually, as an experienced programmer, I *do* think it is confusing as
> evidenced by the mistake Dave made!  Segregated namespaces are wonderful
> (per Zen), but let's not pollute multiple namespaces with same name,
> either.
>
> It may not be literally shadowing the built-in, but it definitely
> mentally shadows the built-in.

I disagree with you. namespaces are there that in working
with a namespace I do not need to worry much about other
namespaces. Therefore, calling a function "readlines"
is very much justified (if it reads lines from a file), even
though there was a module around with name "readlines".
By the way, the module is named "readline" (not "readlines").