How to store some elements from a list into another

[Peter Otten]

Jussi Piitulainen wrote:

> Peter Otten writes:
> 
> ...
> 
>> def edges(items):
>>     first = last = next(items)
>>     for last in items:
>>         pass
>>     return [first, last]
> 
> ...
> 
>> However, this is infested with for loops. Therefore
> 
> ...
> 
>> I don't immediately see what to do about the for loop in edges(), so
>> I'll use the traditional cop-out: Removing the last loop is left as an
>> exercise...
> 
> In the spirit of the exercise:
> 
> def sekond(x, y):
>     return y
> 
> def edges(items): # where items is a non-empty iterator
>     first = next(items)
>     last = functools.reduce(sekond, items, first)
>     return [first, last]
> 
> Of course, right?

Yeah, reduce() is certainly the cherry on the itertools cake ;)