for loop over function that returns a tuple?

[Jussi Piitulainen]

Steven D'Aprano writes:

> On Wed, 2 Sep 2015 09:49 pm, Victor Hooi wrote:
>
>> I have a function which is meant to return a tuple:
>> 
>>     def get_metrics(server_status_json, metrics_to_extract, line_number):
>>         <SOME_CODE>
>>         return ((timestamp, "serverstatus", values, tags))

[- -]

>> I am calling get_metric in a for loop like so:
>> 
>>     for metric_data in get_metrics(server_status_json, mmapv1_metrics,
>>                                    line_number):
>>         json_points.append(create_point(*metric_data))

[- -]

>> I was hoping to use tuple unpacking to pass metric_data straight from
>> get_metrics through to create_point.
>> 
>> However, in this case, metric_data only contains timestamp.
>
> I don't understand this. 

Like so:

    for metric_data in (timestamp, "serverstatus", values, tags):
        foo(*metric_data)

Because get_metrics returns a single tuple.

If it's really essential to "loop" just once, perhaps wrap the one tuple
in a list:

    for metric_data in [get_metrics(server_status_json, mmapv1_metrics,
                                    line_number)]:
         json_points.append(create_point(*metric_data))