Generic dictionary

[Thorsten Kampe]

* Steve D'Aprano (Sun, 20 Nov 2016 22:40:19 +1100)
> 
> Further thoughts come to mind, after looking more closely at your code.
> 
> On Sun, 20 Nov 2016 08:27 pm, Thorsten Kampe wrote:
> 
> >     def values(inst):
> >         if isinstance(inst._generic, dict):
> >             return inst._generic.values()
> >         else:
> >             try:
> >                 return list(zip(*inst._generic))[1]
> >             except IndexError:  # empty GenericDict
> >                 return ()
> 
> That's... weird. Sometimes your instance will return a list, and sometimes a
> tuple. So if you write code expecting a list, it will suddenly and
> unexpectedly break when the instance is empty.
> 
> A better way of writing this is:
> 
>     def values(inst):
>         if isinstance(inst._generic, dict):
>             return inst._generic.values()
>         else:
>             return [t[1] for t in inst._generic]

You are right, I modified it to
`return [value for key, value in inst._generic]`
...which is more more intelligible than my original try/except/list
(zip)

Thanks, Thorsten