[Python-Dev] string representation of range in 3.0 (original) (raw)

Guido van Rossum guido at python.org
Tue Apr 8 01:24:19 CEST 2008

I'd object to it returning something that resembles a list too closely, but I could live with str(range(3)) return <0, 1, 2>. We should probably have a cutoff so that if there are more than 6 values it'll show the first 3 values, then dots, then the last 2 values. (The cutoff would be computed so that '...' always represents at least 2 values.

On Mon, Apr 7, 2008 at 4:14 PM, Brad Miller <bonelake at gmail.com> wrote:

Hi,

I use Python in my CS1 and CS2 curriculum and I have a question. As I've been using the Python 3.0 alphas one of the things that I am bothered by is that I cannot see the sequence produced by range without introducing students to the list() function. I typically introduce range on day 1 of class and show students what it produces without making a big deal out of the fact that it creates a list. They all accept this and things work out nicely when I introduce lists for real in a week or two. My question is why couldn't the str method for the range object be more friendly and show a representation of the sequence? I understand why repr should return range(0,10) for an object created using range(10) but couldn't print(range(10)) produce [0, 1, 2, ... 9] The ... could even be used if the sequence were excessively wrong. If this is acceptable, I would be happy to accept the challenge of providing a patch. Thanks, Brad

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

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