On Saturday, December 7, 2013 10:26:04 PM UTC+5:30, Michael Torrie wrote:
> On 12/06/2013 08:27 PM, Roy Smith wrote:
> > Steven D'Aprano wrote:
> >> The ternary if is slightly unusual and unfamiliar
> > It's only unusual an unfamiliar if you're not used to using it :-)
> > Coming from a C/C++ background, I always found the lack of a ternary
> > expression rather limiting. There was much rejoicing in these parts
> > when it was added to the language relatively recently. I use them a lot.
> > On the other hand, I found list comprehensions to be mind-bogglingly
> > confusing when I first saw them (read: slightly unusual and unfamiliar).
> > It took me a long time to warm up to the concept. Now I love them.
> >> As for readability, I accept that ternary if is unusual compared to other
> >> languages, but it's still quite readable in small doses. If you start
> >> chaining them:
> >> result = a if condition else b if flag else c if predicate else d
> >> you probably shouldn't.
> > That I agree with (and it's just as true in C as it is in Python).
> > Just for fun, I took a look through the Songza code base. 66 kloc of
> > non-whitespace Python. I found 192 ternary expressions. Here's a few
> > of the more bizarre ones (none of which I consider remotely readable):
> > --------------------------------------------------
> > extracols = sorted(set.union(*(set(t.data.keys()) for t in tracks))) if
> > tracks else []
> This is a generator expressions, and ternary ifs are common and often
> needed in generator expressions.
> > --------------------------------------------------
> > c2s = compids2songs(set(targets.keys()) |
> > set.union(*map(set,targets.itervalues())),self.docmap,self.logger) if
> > targets else {}
> I suspect the ternary distracted you on this one. The ternary here is
> needed because if targets is None the expression fails. This part
> anyway is a common idiom.
> The rest is basically making a set (list of unique items only) of the
> combined keys and values from the "targets" dictionary. Now I'm not
> sure why the programmer needs do this, but nevertheless that's what it's
> doing. set.union is used because that can iterate over a list of sets,
> which is what the map returns. I suppose they could have done this, but
> it wouldn't be much clearer unless you knew what sets, map and
> itervalues do:
> if targets:
> c2s = compids2songs(
> set(targets.keys()) |
> set.union(*map(set,targets.itervalues())),
> self.docmap,
> self.logger )
> else:
> c2s = {}
> In any case the ternary operator isn't really the part you were
> complaining about. Personally if I needed to do this particular
> operation a lot (combine keys and values into a set), I'd write a
> function that returned the set. Still can't avoid the ternary, though,
> unless you made compids2songs a little smarter (and we don't know what
> compids2songs does with an empty set):
> def dict_keys_and_values_set (some_dict):
> return set(some_dict.keys()) |
> set.union(*map(set,some_dict.itervalues()))
> c2s = compids2songs( dict_keys_and_values_set(targets) ) if targets else {}
> or I suppose you could o this:
> c2s = {}
> if targets: c2s = compids2songs( dict_keys_and_values_set(targets) )
> Just a matter of taste.
> > --------------------------------------------------
> > code = 2 if (pmp3,paac)==(mmp3,maac) else 3 if any(x is None for x in
> > (pmp3,paac,mmp3,maac)) else 4
> > --------------------------------------------------
Just trying to rewrite that in a way which I try to use for long if-exprs
code = 2 if (pmp3,paac)==(mmp3,maac) else
3 if any(x is None for x in (pmp3,paac,mmp3,maac)) else
4
> This one probably could stand to be reworked for sure! A standard if
> block would be much clearer. Definitely an example of a programmer
> thinking he was clever... maybe a git bisect could identify the author
> and we can shame him.
The logic for writing (and hopefully reading) it this way is like this:
In math we often have equations that are defined by cases -- typically typeset
with a large curly bracket. Those else's hanging at the end are to be read as
a signal to read this whole expr and though under a big curly brace.
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