[Python-ideas] An ABC representing "Iterable, Sized, Container"

[Guido van Rossum]

I'm sorry, I was using Socratic questions to get people to think mount
about the name and semantics for this one type. I certainly don't
think we should have more of these! At least not until we've added an
"except" type to PEP 484.

On Mon, Jul 25, 2016 at 2:29 PM, Bar Harel <bzvi7919 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Guido, I'm not entirely sure if you're joking or not, but if we'll start
> with this, we will never finish.
>
> I believe that although str/bytes truly are special regarding iterables, the
> combinations are endless.
> Soon enough we'll have NotBytesSequence, NumericSequenceWithoutFloat and
> BuiltinNotCustomMadeIterable.
>
> We cannot guarantee a "meaning". We can however guarantee an interface or
> API, in this case __iter__,
> and promote duck-typing in order to support even the craziest custom
> iterables.
>
> I think breaking the design or the state-of-mind in case of
> "IterableButNotString" would be a mistake, unless
> we're planning to remove str's __iter__ altogether (which I don't support
> either but who knows).
>
> Nevertheless, +1 for the unification of Iterable, Sized and Container or
> "Reiterables" as it declares a clearer interface.
>
> On Mon, Jul 25, 2016 at 9:03 PM Guido van Rossum <guido at python.org> wrote:
>>
>> On Mon, Jul 25, 2016 at 10:19 AM, Gregory P. Smith <greg at krypto.org>
>> wrote:
>> > Given how often the str problem comes up in this context, I'm thinking a
>> > common special case in type annotation checkers that explicitly exclude
>> > str
>> > from consideration for iteration.  It's behavior is rarely what the
>> > programmer intended and more likely to be a bug.
>>
>> Should we have IterableButNotString, CollectionExceptString,
>> NonStringSequence, or all three? I suppose the runtime check would be
>> e.g. isinstance(x, Iterable) and not isinstance(x, (str, bytes,
>> bytearray, memoryview))? And the type checker should special-case the
>> snot out of it?
>>
>> --
>> --Guido van Rossum (python.org/~guido)
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-- 
--Guido van Rossum (python.org/~guido)