[Python-ideas] Control Flow - Never Executed Loop Body

[Vito De Tullio]

Robert Collins wrote:

>> Maybe I'm missing something, but shoulnd't be like
>>
>>     if seq:
>>         for elem in seq:
>>             do_stuff(elem)
>>     else:
>>         do_empty_seq_stuff()
>>
>> a trivial code handling an empty list?
> 
> seq = iter([])
> 
> will cause your example to not run do_empty_seq_stuff().

oh, ok. sorry, didn't think about the iterator object.


...thinking about it, is there a reason why the boolean interpretation of an 
empty iterator is true?

I know it's not trivial to know if an iterator is empty (still, there are a 
pair of recipes online, like http://code.activestate.com/recipes/413614-testing-for-an-empty-iterator/ or the first part of the response at 
http://stackoverflow.com/a/3114423/273593 ) but shoulnd't be more "pythonic" 
to just have a "falsy" value for an "empty" iterator?

-- 
By ZeD