[Python-Dev] non-mutating 'choose' to go with 'dict.popitem'? (original) (raw)

Thomas Wouters thomas@xs4all.net
Tue, 8 May 2001 13:36:38 +0200

On Sun, May 06, 2001 at 02:15:57PM -0400, Tim Peters wrote:

Given the new dict iterators in 2.2, there's an easier fast way that doesn't mutate the dict even under the covers:

def arb(dict): if dict: return dict.iteritems().next() raise KeyError("arb passed an empty dict")

You probably want:

arb = dict.iteritems().next

so that you don't keep on returning the same key,value pair.

-- Thomas Wouters <thomas@xs4all.net>

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