On Wed, 30 Nov 2011 22:15:27 -0500, Roy Smith wrote:
> I need to try a bunch of names in sequence until I find one that works
> (definition of "works" is unimportant). The algorithm is:
>
> 1) Given a base name, "foo", first see if just plain "foo" works.
>
> 2) If not, try "foo-1", "foo-2", and so on
>
> 3) If you reach "foo-20", give up.
>
> What would you say if you saw this:
>
> for suffix in [''] + [str(i) for i in xrange(-1, -20, -1)]:
>
> It generates the right sequence of strings. But, if you came upon that
> code, would it make sense to you, or would you spend half the afternoon
> trying to figure out what it did and the other half of the afternoon
> ranting about the deranged lunatic who wrote it?
Nah, it's fine. Not exactly the clearest piece of code in the world, but
hardly worth a rant.
I'd be more likely to write that as:
for suffix in [''] + ["-%d" % i for i in range(1, 21)]:
or if I needed to do it more than once, as a generator:
def suffixes(max=20):
yield ""
for i in range(1, max+1):
yield "-%d" % i
--
Steven
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