[Python-ideas] A function that gives you the number of items in an arbitrary iterable (not len)

Fri Jul 29 01:56:31 CEST 2011

On Thu, Jul 28, 2011 at 05:56:29PM -0400, Mike Graham wrote:
> There are a couple patterns, some uglier than others, which I have
> seen occasionally pop up which could be solved by a new builtin or
> stdlib that works like
>> def exhaust(it):
> count = 0
> for item in it:
> count += 1
> return count

I've done this before:
sum(1 for x in it)
I don't do it frequently enough that a builtin would seem necessary.
--
Andrew McNabb
http://www.mcnabbs.org/andrew/
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