[Python-Dev] get for lists and tuples? (original) (raw)

Raymond Hettinger rhettinger at ewtllc.com
Tue Jul 11 20:19:48 CEST 2006

Russell E. Owen wrote:

I'd like to have the get method available for lists and tuples. (I figured this must have been discussed before but can't recall it and didn't turn anything up on google).

It's obviously not a use-all-the-time method (or it'd already be there), but I find myself wanting it often enough to justify it in my own mind (and curse this omission, relative to dict). Basically I run into it when parsing data of variable length (where the extra elements have some obvious default value), including config files, sys.argv (for simple command scripts), that sort of thing. How about:

optarg = argv[4] if len(argv)>4 else 'default'

Yes a 4-liner does the job, but "get" would be a much clearer way to write it.

Anyway, I'm just testing the waters. If it's not heresy then I'd like to do what I can to make it happen.

Perhaps in an alternate universe ;-)

Raymond

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