Re: Help me understand this iterator

On Tue, 31 Oct 2006 03:36:08 -0800, LaundroMat wrote:

Hi,

I've found this script over at effbot
(http://effbot.org/librarybook/os-path.htm), and I can't get my head
around its inner workings.

[snip code]

Now, if I look at this script step by step, I don't understand:
- what is being iterated over (what is being called by "file in
DirectoryWalker()"?);

What is being iterated over is the list of files in the current directory.
In Unix land (and probably DOS/Windows as well) the directory "." means
"this directory, right here".


- where it gets the "index" value from;

When Python see's a line like "for x in obj:" it does some special
magic. First it looks to see if obj has a "next" method, that is, it
tries to call obj.next() repeatedly. That's not the case here --
DirectoryWalker is an old-style iterator, not one of the fancy new ones.

Instead, Python tries calling obj[index] starting at 0 and keeps going
until an IndexError exception is raised, then it halts the for loop.

So, think of it like this: pretend that Python expands the following code:

for x in obj:
block

into something like this:

index = 0
while True: # loop forever
try:
x = obj[index]
block # can use x in block
except IndexError:
# catch the exception and escape the while loop
break
index = index + 1
# and now we're done, continue the rest of the program

That's not exactly what Python does, of course, it is much more efficient,
but that's a good picture of what happens.


- where the "while 1:"-loop is quitted.


The while 1 loop is escaped when the function hits the return statement.



--
Steven.

.

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