obtaining multiple values from a function.

[Shriphani]

hello all,

If I have a function that loops over a few elements and is expected to
throw out a few tuples as the output, then what should I be using in
place of return ?
Shriphani Palakodety.

[Peter Otten]

Shriphani wrote:

If I have a function that loops over a few elements and is expected to
throw out a few tuples as the output, then what should I be using in
place of return ?

Use a generator and have it /yield/ rather than /return/ results:

>>def f(items):

.... for item in items:
.... yield item.isdigit(), item.isupper()
....

>>for result in f("AAA bbb 111".split()):

.... print result
....
(False, True)
(False, False)
(True, False)

This is a very memory-efficient approach, particularly if the input items
are created on the fly, e. g. read from a file one at a time.

Peter

[Ben Finney]

Shriphani <sh********@gma il.comwrites:

If I have a function that loops over a few elements and is expected to
throw out a few tuples as the output, then what should I be using in
place of return ?

If it makes sense for the set of results to be returned all at once,
then return the object that collects them all together — a list of
tuples, for example.
If, instead, it makes sense for the results to be iterated over, you
can write a function that yields results one at a time, without
necessarily knowing in advance what the entire set will be::

>>def fib(max_result) :

... """ Yield numbers in the Fibonacci sequence
... to a maximum value of max_result. """
... prev_results = [0, 0]
... result = 1
... while result < max_result:
... yield result
... prev_results = [prev_results[1], result]
... result = sum(prev_result s)
...

The function, when called, will return a generator object that you can
either iterate over::

>>fib_generat or = fib(100)
for n in fib_generator:

... print n
...
1
1
2
3
5
8
13
21
34
55
89

or directly call its 'next' method to get one result at a time until
it raises a 'StopIteration' exception::

>>fib_generat or = fib(5)
fib_generator .next()

1

>>fib_generator .next()

1

>>fib_generator .next()

2

>>fib_generator .next()

3

>>fib_generator .next()

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 1, in ?
StopIteration

--
\ "I have one rule to live by: Don't make it worse." -- Hazel |
`\ Woodcock |
_o__) |
Ben Finney

[Paul Rudin]

Ben Finney <bi************ ****@benfinney. id.auwrites:

>
If, instead, it makes sense for the results to be iterated over, you
can write a function that yields results one at a time, without
necessarily knowing in advance what the entire set will be::

>>def fib(max_result) :

Going off on a tangent a bit, but I was idly considering the absence
of itertools.iredu ce the other day. A problem is that reduce gives a
single result, so it's not clear what ireduce would do (perhaps why
it's not there). One obvious candidate would be to give the whole
sequence of partial reductions. I'm not sure if this would be
generally useful, but it would give a succinct way to do the Fibonacci
sequence:

itertools.iredu ce(operator.add , itertools.count ())

[Carsten Haese]

On Tue, 2007-09-25 at 10:41 +0100, Paul Rudin wrote:

Going off on a tangent a bit, but I was idly considering the absence
of itertools.iredu ce the other day. A problem is that reduce gives a
single result, so it's not clear what ireduce would do (perhaps why
it's not there). One obvious candidate would be to give the whole
sequence of partial reductions. I'm not sure if this would be
generally useful, but it would give a succinct way to do the Fibonacci
sequence:

itertools.iredu ce(operator.add , itertools.count ())

Let's try it:

>>def ireduce(op, iterable, partial=0):

.... for nxt in iterable:
.... partial = op(partial, nxt)
.... yield partial
....

>>import operator
from itertools import islice, count

for x in islice(ireduce( operator.add, count()), 0, 10):

.... print x
....
0
1
3
6
10
15
21
28
36
45

That's not the Fibonacci sequence.

--
Carsten Haese
http://informixdb.sourceforge.net

[Paul Rudin]

Carsten Haese <ca*****@uniqsy s.comwrites:

...
That's not the Fibonacci sequence.

Bah, you're right of course, I should be more more careful before
posting these things.