[Python-Dev] Re: More int/long integration issues (original) (raw)

Guido van Rossum guido@python.org
Fri, 11 Apr 2003 16:32:51 -0400

On Fri, 2003-03-21 at 06:55, Guido van Rossum wrote:

> > > Hm, maybe range() shouldn't be an iterator but an interator > > > generator. No time to explain; see the discussion about > > > restartable iterators.

[Chad Netzer]

Hmmm. Now that've uploaded my patch extending range() to longs,

(And now that I've checked it in. :-)

I'd like to work on this. I've already written a C range() iterator (incorporating PyLongs), and it would be very nice to have it automatically be a lazy range() when used in a loop.

In any case, assuming you are quite busy, but would consider this for the 2.4 timeframe, I will do some work on it. If it is already being covered, I'll gladly stay away from it. :)

range() can't be changed from returning a list until at least Python 3.0.

xrange() already is an iterator well. So I'm not sure there's much to do, especially since I think making xrange() support large longs goes against the design goal for xrange(), which is to be a lightweight alternative for range() when speed is important.

--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)