[Python-ideas] For-loop variable scope: simultaneous possession and ingestion of cake

[Terry Reedy]

Greg Ewing wrote:
> Terry Reedy wrote:
> 
  >> Here are 5 more alternatives that have the same effect:
> 
> All of which are even worse, to my eyes.

If you mean worse than the simple default arg hack, I could be 
persuaded. But the default arg issue is a red herring.  There is no need 
for what you call abuse, as I amply demonstrated, and there is no way 
for you to stop others from (mis)using them without removing them.

If you mean worse than turning for-loops into an esoteric CS monster (my 
view), we disagree.

My deeper objection is this.  Your intended-to-be-motivating example, 
similar to what others have occasionally posted, is a toy snippet that 
illustrates some points of Python behavior, but which I see no use for 
in real application code.  Given def f(i): return i; your lst[i]() is 
equivalent to f(i).  So just write and use the function.

OK, to be persnickety, we need more code, of about the same length as 
needed to generate lst:

def f(i):
   if not isinstance(i,int): raise TypeError("requires int i")
   if not -10 <=i <10: raise ValueError("requires -10 <= i < 10")
   return i

So, as near as I can see, your list of identical functions with variant 
closure cells simulates type and range checking.  What is the point of that?

Perhaps you have an undisclosed real use case with much more complicated 
closures.  It would still be true that the array index could instead to 
fed to the function as an arg.  If there were really a reason not to do 
that, the 15 keystroke overhead would be relatively much smaller for 
more complicated (and realistic) closures.

Terry Jan Reedy