On 4/3/2024 1:27 AM, AVI GROSS via Python-list wrote:
I am a tad confused by a suggestion that any kind of GOTO variant is bad. The
suggestion runs counter to the reality that underneath it all, compiled
programs are chock full of GOTO variants even for simple things like IF-ELSE.
Consider the code here:
def first_word_beginning_with_e( list_ ):
for word in list_:
if word[ 0 ]== 'e': return word
something_to_be_done_at_the_end_of_this_function()
If instead the function initialized a variable to nothing useful and in the
loop if it found a word beginning with e and it still contained nothing useful,
copied it into the variable and then allowed the code to complete the loop and
finally returned the variable, that would simply be a much less efficient
solution to the problem and gain NOTHING. There are many variants you can come
up with and when the conditions are complex and many points of immediate
return, fine, then it may be dangerous. But a single return is fine.
The function does have a flaw as it is not clear what it should do if nothing
is found. Calling a silly long name does not necessarily return anything.
Others, like Thomas, have shown other variants including some longer and more
complex ways.
A fairly simple one-liner version, not necessarily efficient, would be to just
use a list comprehension that makes a new list of just the ones matching the
pattern of starting with an 'e' and then returns the first entry or None. This
shows the code and test it:
text = ["eastern", "Western", "easter"]
NorEaster = ["North", "West", "orient"]
def first_word_beginning_with_e( list_ ):
return(result[0] if (result := [word for word in list_ if word[0].lower() ==
'e']) else None)
print(first_word_beginning_with_e( text ))
print(first_word_beginning_with_e( NorEaster ))
Result of running it on a version of python ay least 3.8 so it supports the
walrus operator:
eastern
None
The OP seems to want to return None if a match is not found. If a
Python function ends without a return statement, it automatically
returns None. So nothing special needs to be done. True, that is
probably a special case, but it suggests that the problem posed to the
chatbot was not posed well. A truly useful chatbot could have discussed
many of the points we've been discussing. That would have made for a
good learning experience. Instead the chatbot produced poorly
constructed code that caused a bad learning experience.
[snip...]
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