[Python-ideas] range

[Nick Coghlan]

On Sat, Feb 23, 2013 at 12:05 AM, Antoine Pitrou <solipsis at pitrou.net> wrote:
> Le Thu, 21 Feb 2013 13:35:17 +0000 (UTC),
> Wolfgang Maier
> <wolfgang.maier at biologie.uni-freiburg.de> a
> écrit :
>> Dear all,
>> what do you think about allowing the use of operators on ranges?
>>
>> I thought of things like:
>> a = range(1,10)
>> b = range(5,12)
>> intersect = a & b     # equivalent to intersect = range(5,10)
>> merge = a | b         # equivalent to merge = range(1,12)
>>
>> to make this work in more complex cases, like:
>> a = range(1,10)
>> b = range(12,15)
>> merge = a | b         # equivalent to sth. like
>> range(range(1,10),range(12,15))
>
> -1. range() is a contiguous sequence, not an arbitrary container.
> Simplicity is part of its virtues.

-1 from me as well. We don't even implement concatenation and
repetition for ranges in order to keep them simple - we have to caveat
the range docs to point out they don't *quite* implement the full
sequence API due to this restriction.

However, I will note that starting in Python 3.3, range objects expose
their "start", "stop" and "step" attributes. That makes it much easier
for third party software to manipulate them arithmetically.

Cheers,
Nick.

-- 
Nick Coghlan   |   ncoghlan at gmail.com   |   Brisbane, Australia