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Groups > comp.lang.python > #32222

Re: while expression feature proposal

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Dan Loewenherz <dloewenherz@gmail.com> writes:
> We also don't special case things like this just because x is an empty
> string. If this "while EXPR as VAR" thing were to move forward, we
> shouldn't treat the truth testing any differently than how we already
> do. IMO we should write our applications with the understanding that
> '' will return False and work with that.

We don't "already" treat the truth testing any particular way because we
don't have this construction in the language at the moment.  However,
it's well-established in Python that converting a string to a bool
results in False iff the string is empty.

The empty string is a perfectly good string and code that deals with
strings should handle the empty string properly, unless it knows the
string won't be empty.  Basic modularity principles say to avoid putting
such knowledge into more of the code than necessary.  

The conclusion is to not automatically convert the parameter to a bool.
However, if the "as" can be part of an expression as in Chris Angelico's
post, Chris's suggestion

     while (client.spop("profile_ids") as profile_id) is not None:
         print profile_id

looks good to me.

>     while client.spop("profile_ids") as truthy, profile_id:
>         if not truthy:
>             break

This is ugly on two levels.  First of all, if the .spop() still returns
None at the end of the input, the tuple unpacking will fail.  Second,
the separate test and break defeats the purpose of the "while ... as"
construction.  Might as well use the current style of assignment and
test inside the loop.

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Re: while expression feature proposal Ian Kelly <ian.g.kelly@gmail.com> - 2012-10-24 16:54 -0600
  Re: while expression feature proposal Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2012-10-24 16:08 -0700
    Re: while expression feature proposal Ian Kelly <ian.g.kelly@gmail.com> - 2012-10-24 17:39 -0600
      Re: while expression feature proposal Thomas Rachel <nutznetz-0c1b6768-bfa9-48d5-a470-7603bd3aa915@spamschutz.glglgl.de> - 2012-10-25 09:21 +0200
        Re: while expression feature proposal Thomas Rachel <nutznetz-0c1b6768-bfa9-48d5-a470-7603bd3aa915@spamschutz.glglgl.de> - 2012-10-25 12:12 +0200
        Re: while expression feature proposal Ian Kelly <ian.g.kelly@gmail.com> - 2012-10-25 10:36 -0600
          Re: while expression feature proposal Thomas Rachel <nutznetz-0c1b6768-bfa9-48d5-a470-7603bd3aa915@spamschutz.glglgl.de> - 2012-10-25 22:49 +0200
            Re: while expression feature proposal Dan Loewenherz <dloewenherz@gmail.com> - 2012-10-25 22:12 -0700
              Re: while expression feature proposal Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2012-10-25 23:06 -0700
                Re: while expression feature proposal Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2012-10-26 17:23 +1100
                Re: while expression feature proposal Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> - 2012-10-26 09:43 +0000
                Re: while expression feature proposal Dan Loewenherz <dloewenherz@gmail.com> - 2012-10-26 08:29 -0700
                Re: while expression feature proposal Ian Kelly <ian.g.kelly@gmail.com> - 2012-10-26 09:42 -0600
                Re: while expression feature proposal Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2012-10-26 09:10 -0700
                Re: while expression feature proposal Cameron Simpson <cs@zip.com.au> - 2012-10-27 09:03 +1100
                Re: while expression feature proposal Ian Kelly <ian.g.kelly@gmail.com> - 2012-10-26 16:48 -0600
                Re: while expression feature proposal Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> - 2012-10-27 00:07 +0000
                Re: while expression feature proposal Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2012-10-26 20:43 -0700
                Re: while expression feature proposal Tim Chase <sed@thechases.com> - 2012-10-26 18:26 -0500
                Re: while expression feature proposal Devin Jeanpierre <jeanpierreda@gmail.com> - 2012-10-26 19:41 -0400
                Re: while expression feature proposal Devin Jeanpierre <jeanpierreda@gmail.com> - 2012-10-26 19:19 -0400
                Re: while expression feature proposal Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2012-10-27 11:42 +1100
              Re: while expression feature proposal Devin Jeanpierre <jeanpierreda@gmail.com> - 2012-10-26 19:12 -0400
                Re: while expression feature proposal Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> - 2012-10-27 00:18 +0000
                Re: while expression feature proposal Devin Jeanpierre <jeanpierreda@gmail.com> - 2012-10-26 20:27 -0400
                Re: while expression feature proposal Tim Chase <python.list@tim.thechases.com> - 2012-10-27 14:15 -0500
              Re: while expression feature proposal Devin Jeanpierre <jeanpierreda@gmail.com> - 2012-10-26 19:51 -0400
        Re: while expression feature proposal Ian Kelly <ian.g.kelly@gmail.com> - 2012-10-25 10:47 -0600
    Re: while expression feature proposal Paul Rudin <paul.nospam@rudin.co.uk> - 2012-10-25 10:35 +0100

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