[Michael Foord] >I have a suggestion for a new Python built in function: 'flatten'. > ... > There are several different possible approaches in pure Python, > but is this an idea that has legs ?
No legs. It has been discussed ad naseum on comp.lang.python. People seem to enjoy writing their own versions of flatten more than finding legitimate use cases that don't already have trivial solutions. A general purpose flattener needs some way to be told was is atomic and what can be further subdivided. Also, it not obvious how the algorithm should be extended to cover inputs with tree-like data structures with data at nodes as well as the leaves (preorder, postorder, inorder traversal, etc.) I say use your favorite cookbook approach and leave it out of the language. Raymond _______________________________________________ Python-Dev mailing list Python-Dev@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-dev Unsubscribe: http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/python-dev/archive%40mail-archive.com
