On Apr 20, 8:01 pm, Roy Smith <r...@panix.com> wrote: > In article <4f921a2d$0$29965$c3e8da3$54964...@news.astraweb.com>, > Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.pyt...@pearwood.info> wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > On Fri, 20 Apr 2012 09:41:25 -0400, Roy Smith wrote: > > > > In article <4f910c3d$0$29965$c3e8da3$54964...@news.astraweb.com>, > > > Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.pyt...@pearwood.info> wrote: > > > >> I refer you to your subject line: > > > >> "How do you refer to an iterator in docs?" > > > >> In documentation, I refer to an iterator as an iterator, just as I > > >> would refer to a list as a list, a dict as a dict, or a string as a > > >> string. > > > > Except that "list of foos" and "sequence of foos" make sense from a > > > grammar standpoint, but "iterator of foos" does not. Or maybe it does? > > > Why wouldn't it make sense? > > Because an iterator isn't a container. I don't know, maybe it does make > sense, but my first impression is that it sounds wrong. > > A basket of apples is a basket which contains apples, in the same way a > list contains foos. But an iterator doesn't contain anything. You > wouldn't say, "a spigot of water", because the spigot isn't a container > holding the water. It is simply a mechanism for delivering the water in > a controlled way.
If you don't want to imply a false sense of containment, then you could say "iterator over foos" as opposed to "iterator of foos." -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
