New submission from Francisco Gracia <fgragu...@gmail.com>:
I find baffling the following behaviour of *re.finditer()*:
Python 3.2 (r32:88445, Feb 20 2011, 21:29:02) [MSC v.1500 32 bit (Intel)]
on win32
Type "copyright", "credits" or "license()" for more information.
>>> import re
>>> m = re.finditer( '123', 'abc' )
>>> m
<callable_iterator object at 0x00BF09B0>
>>> if m : 'I am Napoleon'
'I am Napoleon'
No other way of formulating the condition that I have tried has worked either.
Apparently *m* is always true, although all efforts to test its value indicate
the contrary:
>>> m == True
False
>>>
This does not happen with any other of the related methods (*findall*, *match*,
*search*), which no doubt is the correct and logical behaviour:
>>> n = re.findall( '123', 'abc' )
>>> n
[]
>>> if n : 'I am Napoleon'
>>>
I have not seen any warning or explanation for this fact in the official or
third party documentation that I have consulted. Perhaps it is not a bug, but,
as the preceding lines show, it makes impossible to test the result of the
operation and direct the subsequent program flow.
If this were an unavoidable feature of *re.finditer*, it should be at least
clearly exposed and, if possible, with indications of how to circumvent its
undesirable consequences.
Thanks for your attention and efforts.
----------
components: Regular Expressions
messages: 161705
nosy: ezio.melotti, fgracia, mrabarnett
priority: normal
severity: normal
status: open
title: re.finditer() oddity
type: behavior
versions: Python 3.2
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Python tracker <rep...@bugs.python.org>
<http://bugs.python.org/issue14924>
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