> >>> Iterators do not generally have __len__ methods.
> >>>
> >>> >>> len(iter(range(10)))
> >>> Traceback (most recent call last):
> >>> File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
> >>> TypeError: object of type 'range_iterator' has no len()
> >>
> >> But iterators have a length hint method that are used for some
> >> optimizations and preallocations, too.
> >>
> >> >>> i = iter(range(10))
> >> >>> i.__length_hint__()
> >> 10
> >>
> >> See http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0424/
> >
very interesting (hadn't heard of it)! Just checked the PEP,
then tested list()'s behavior, and it is just as described:
class stupid(list):
def __len__(self):
print ('len() called')
return NotImplemented
def __length_hint__(self):
print ('hint requested')
l=iter(self).__length_hint__()
print (l)
return l
a=stupid((1,2,3))
len(d)
======>
len() called
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<pyshell#79>", line 1, in <module>
len(d)
TypeError: an integer is required
list(d)
======>
len() called
hint requested
3
[1, 2, 3]
so list() first tries to call the iterable's __len__ method. If that raises a
TypeError it falls back to __length_hint__ .
What I still don't know is how the listiterator object's __length_hint__ works.
Why, in this case, does it know that it has a length of 3 ? The PEP does not
provide any hint how a reasonable hint could be calculated.
> And how exactly would it do that, without either doing what __len__ does or
> reading the whole result set into memory?
>
> Stefan
>
a very good question.
Best,
Wolfgang
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