Re: iterator clone

2008-07-15 Thread Kay Schluehr
On 15 Jul., 08:16, Yosifov Pavel [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 cloning of iterators in this manner is bad, more good is to use one,
 single list(my_iter) instead of 
 (seehttp://aquagnu.blogspot.com/2008/07/self-repair-iterator-in-python.html).

This won't work for big iterators as mentioned by Peter Otten. With
this recipe you can't even clone generator objects ( which are
iterators ) that produce Fibonaccis in a lazy manner.

Regards, Kay

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Re: iterator clone

2008-07-15 Thread Yosifov Pavel
Kay, can you show example of such generator? ReIter, for example, work
with usual generators.

But for big iterator, I think is no any good solutions. IMHO we can
discern 2 types of iterators: re-startable (based on internal Python
objects) and not re-startable (with an external state, side-
effects)...

Best regards, Pavel
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Re: iterator clone

2008-07-15 Thread Marc 'BlackJack' Rintsch
On Tue, 15 Jul 2008 19:54:30 -0700, Yosifov Pavel wrote:

 Kay, can you show example of such generator? ReIter, for example, work
 with usual generators.
 
 But for big iterator, I think is no any good solutions. IMHO we can
 discern 2 types of iterators: re-startable (based on internal Python
 objects) and not re-startable (with an external state, side-
 effects)...

Has nothing to do with internal vs. external.
Examples: ``itertools.count(1)``, ``itertools.cycle(iterable)``, or

def fib():
a, b = 0, 1
while True:
yield a
a, b = b, a + b

Ciao,
Marc 'BlackJack' Rintsch
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Re: iterator clone

2008-07-14 Thread Yosifov Pavel
 `tee()` doesn't copy the iterator or its internal state but just caches
 it's results, so you can iterate over them again.  That makes only sense
 if you expect to use the two iterators in a way they don't get much out of
 sync.  If your usage pattern is consume iterator 1 fully, and then
 re-iterate with iterator 2 `tee()` has no advantage over building a list
 of all results of the original iterator and iterate over that twice.
 `tee()` would be building this list anyway.

It's interesting and a concrete answer. Thanks a lot.

 Because it's often not possible without generating a list with all
 results, and the advantage of a low memory footprint is lost.

 Ciao,
 Marc 'BlackJack' Rintsch

Seems like monada. But I think is possible to determine when there
is a bounded external state (side-effects) or not, may be is needed
some new class-protocol for it... or something else. Or another way:
iterators may be re-iterable always, but if programmer need to point
to the extra- (external) state, he has to raise some a special
exception in __iter)) method... OK, it's only fantasies about language
design :-)

--pavel
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Re: iterator clone

2008-07-14 Thread [EMAIL PROTECTED]
On 13 juil, 12:05, Yosifov Pavel [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
(snip)

 def cloneiter( it ):
 return (clonable,clone)
 return tee(it)

This might as well be written as

cloneiter  = tee

Or yet better, just remove the above code and s/cloneiter/tee/g in the
remaining...

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Re: iterator clone

2008-07-13 Thread Peter Otten
Yosifov Pavel wrote:

 Whats is the way to clone independent iterator? I can't use tee(),
 because I don't know how many independent iterators I need. copy and
 deepcopy doesn't work...

There is no general way. For short sequences you can store the items in a
list which is also the worst-case behaviour of tee().

What are you trying to do?

Peter

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Re: iterator clone

2008-07-13 Thread Yosifov Pavel
On 13 июл, 14:12, Peter Otten [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 Yosifov Pavel wrote:
  Whats is the way to clone independent iterator? I can't use tee(),
  because I don't know how many independent iterators I need. copy and
  deepcopy doesn't work...

 There is no general way. For short sequences you can store the items in a
 list which is also the worst-case behaviour of tee().

 What are you trying to do?

 Peter

I try to generate iterators (iterator of iterators). Peter, you are
right! Thank you. For example, it's possible to use something like
this:

def cloneiter( it ):
return (clonable,clone)
return tee(it)

and usage:

clonable,seq1 = cloneiter(seq)

...iter over seq1...
then clone again:

clonable,seq2 = cloneiter(clonable)

...iter over seq2...

Or in class:

class ReIter:
def __init__( self, it ):
self._it = it
def __iter__( self ):
self._it,ret = tee(self._it)
return ret

and usage:

ri = ReIter(seq)
...iter over ri...
...again iter over ri...
...and again...

But I think (I'm sure!) it's deficiency of Python iterators! They are
not very good...

--Pavel
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Re: iterator clone

2008-07-13 Thread Peter Otten
Yosifov Pavel wrote:

 On 13 июл, 14:12, Peter Otten [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 Yosifov Pavel wrote:
  Whats is the way to clone independent iterator? I can't use tee(),
  because I don't know how many independent iterators I need. copy and
  deepcopy doesn't work...

 There is no general way. For short sequences you can store the items in
 a list which is also the worst-case behaviour of tee().

 What are you trying to do?

 Peter
 
 I try to generate iterators (iterator of iterators). Peter, you are
 right! Thank you. For example, it's possible to use something like
 this:
 
 def cloneiter( it ):
 return (clonable,clone)
 return tee(it)

[snip]

That is too abstract, sorry. What concrete problem are you trying to solve
with your cloned iterators? There might be a way to rearrange your setup in
a way that doesn't need them.

 But I think (I'm sure!) it's deficiency of Python iterators! They are
 not very good...

Well, I think Python's iterators, especially the generators, are beautiful.
More importantly, I think there is no general way to make iterators
copyable, regardless of the programming language. The problem is that most
of the useful ones depend on external state.

Peter
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Re: iterator clone

2008-07-13 Thread Yosifov Pavel
 Well, I think Python's iterators, especially the generators, are beautiful.
 More importantly, I think there is no general way to make iterators
 copyable, regardless of the programming language. The problem is that most
 of the useful ones depend on external state.

 Peter

Hmm, but tee() de facto do it (clone iterator) and ignore side-effects
of iterator (external state). And tee() create independent
**internal** state of iterator (current position). But **external**
state - is headache of programmer. So, iterator/generator have to be
method for copy itself (the tee() implementation) or be re-
startable. Why not?

Concrete problem was to generate iterators (iterator of slices). It
was solved with ReIter.

--Best regards,
--pavel
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Re: iterator clone

2008-07-13 Thread Marc 'BlackJack' Rintsch
On Sun, 13 Jul 2008 18:51:19 -0700, Yosifov Pavel wrote:

 Well, I think Python's iterators, especially the generators, are beautiful.
 More importantly, I think there is no general way to make iterators
 copyable, regardless of the programming language. The problem is that most
 of the useful ones depend on external state.
 
 Hmm, but tee() de facto do it (clone iterator) and ignore side-effects
 of iterator (external state). And tee() create independent
 **internal** state of iterator (current position).

`tee()` doesn't copy the iterator or its internal state but just caches
it's results, so you can iterate over them again.  That makes only sense
if you expect to use the two iterators in a way they don't get much out of
sync.  If your usage pattern is consume iterator 1 fully, and then
re-iterate with iterator 2 `tee()` has no advantage over building a list
of all results of the original iterator and iterate over that twice. 
`tee()` would be building this list anyway.

 But **external** state - is headache of programmer. So,
 iterator/generator have to be method for copy itself (the tee()
 implementation) or be re- startable. Why not?

Because it's often not possible without generating a list with all
results, and the advantage of a low memory footprint is lost.

Ciao,
Marc 'BlackJack' Rintsch
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