Screwing Up looping in Generator

[Erik]

Hi,

On 03/01/17 22:14, Deborah Swanson wrote:
> ...you have to create the generator object first and use it to call the
> next function. And I really don't think you can use a generator as your
> range in a for loop. So I'd use a 'while True', and break out of the
> loop when you hit the StopIteration exception:
>
> files = rootobs()
>
> while True:
>   try:
>     file = files.next()
>   except StopIteration:
>     break
>
>     base = os.path.basename(file.name)
>        .
>        .	
>        .
>       (etc)

What you have done there is taken an understanding of the underlying 
machinery that allows the 'for' loop to be syntactic sugar over any 
iterable and spelled it out, instead of just using 'for'! Without all 
that, your example is:

for file in rootobs():
   base = os.path.basename(file.name)
   .
   .
   .
   (etc)

[In fact, the machinery would also cope with the return value from 
rootobs() being an iterable but not an iterator by using "files = 
iter(rootobjs)"].



You seem to be reading up on how the stuff works under the covers (i.e., 
from the point of view of an implementer of a class or library) and then 
suggesting that that's what the *caller* of that class or library needs 
to do. They don't - for a caller, 'for x in seq:' is all they need to 
know - the mechanics are handled by the interpreter coupled with the 
dunder methods that the class may implement.


E.