Szabolcs Horvát wrote:
Arnaud Delobelle wrote:
sum() works for any sequence of objects with an __add__ method, not
just floats! Your algorithm is specific to floats.
This occurred to me also, but then I tried
sum(['abc', 'efg'], '')
and it did not work. Or is this just a special exception to prevent the
misuse of sum to join strings? (As I said, I'm only an occasional user.)
What you wrote is nonsensical there, no different from 'a' + 1 -- which
is why it quite rightly raises a TypeError.
You're trying to add a list to a string, which is nonsensical. You add
strings to strings, or lists to lists, but mixing them up doesn't make
sense. Python can't guess what you mean when you write something like
['abc', 'def'] + '' -- which is the functional equivalent of your call
to sum -- and so doesn't try. It indicates this by raising a TypeError.
--
Erik Max Francis && [EMAIL PROTECTED] && http://www.alcyone.com/max/
San Jose, CA, USA && 37 18 N 121 57 W && AIM, Y!M erikmaxfrancis
--
http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
