On Feb 23, 1:19 pm, Buck Golemon <b...@yelp.com> wrote: > I feel like the design of sum() is inconsistent with other language > features of python. Often python doesn't require a specific type, only > that the type implement certain methods. > > Given a class that implements __add__ why should sum() not be able to > operate on that class? > > We can fix this in a backward-compatible way, I believe. > > Demonstration: > I'd expect these two error messages to be identical, but they are > not. > > >>> class C(object): pass > >>> c = C() > >>> sum((c,c)) > TypeError: unsupported operand type(s) for +: 'int' and 'C' > >>> c + c > TypeError: unsupported operand type(s) for +: 'C' and 'C'
Proposal: def sum(values, base=0): values = iter(values) try: result = values.next() except StopIteration: return base for value in values: result += value return result -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list