[Python-Dev] Suggestion for a new built-in (original) (raw)

Michael Foord fuzzyman at voidspace.org.uk
Fri Sep 22 19:43:42 CEST 2006

Hello all,

I have a suggestion for a new Python built in function: 'flatten'.

This would (as if it needs explanation) take a single sequence, where each element can be a sequence (or iterable ?) nested to an arbitrary depth. It would return a flattened list. A useful restriction could be that it wouldn't expand strings :-)

I've needed this several times, and recently twice at work. There are several implementations in the Python cookbook. When I posted on my blog recently asking for one liners to flatten a list of lists (only 1 level of nesting), I had 26 responses, several of them saying it was a problem they had encountered before.

There are also numerous places on the web bewailing the lack of this as a built-in. All of this points to the fact that it is something that would be appreciated as a built in.

There is an implementation already in Tkinter :

import _tkinter._flatten as flatten

There are several different possible approaches in pure Python, but is this an idea that has legs ?

All the best,

Michael Foord http://www.voidspace.org.uk/python/index.shtml

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