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The in Nite Iterators

The document discusses iterators in Python's itertools module. It introduces three infinite iterators: count, which returns evenly spaced values starting from a given number; cycle, which cycles through an iterable infinitely; and repeat, which repeats an object indefinitely or for a given number of times. Examples are provided to illustrate how to use each iterator and how to limit loops when using infinite iterators.

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13 views

The in Nite Iterators

The document discusses iterators in Python's itertools module. It introduces three infinite iterators: count, which returns evenly spaced values starting from a given number; cycle, which cycles through an iterable infinitely; and repeat, which repeats an object indefinitely or for a given number of times. Examples are provided to illustrate how to use each iterator and how to limit loops when using infinite iterators.

Uploaded by

Anonymous gqSpNAmlW
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Iterators

Python provides a great module for creating your own iterators. The module I
am referring to is itertools. The tools provided by itertools are fast and
memory efficient. You will be able to take these building blocks to create your
own specialized iterators that can be used for efficient looping. In this
chapter, we will be looking at examples of each building block so that by the
end you will understand how to use them for your own code bases.

Let’s get started by looking at some infinite iterators!

The In nite Iterators


The itertools package comes with three iterators that can iterate infinitely.
What this means is that when you use them, you need to understand that you
will need to break out of these iterators eventually or you’ll have an infinite
loop.

These can be useful for generating numbers or cycling over iterables of


unknown length, for example. Let’s get started learning about these
interesting iterables!

count(start=0, step=1)
The count iterator will return evenly spaced values starting with the number
you pass in as its start parameter. Count also accept a step parameter. Let’s
take a look at a simple example:

from itertools import count


for i in count(10):
if i > 20:
break
else:
print(i)

#10
#11
#12
#13
#14

#15
#16
#17
#18
#19
#20

Here we import count from itertools and we create a for loop. We add a
conditional check that will break out of the loop should the iterator exceed 20,
otherwise it prints out where we are in the iterator. You will note that the
output starts at 10 as that was what we passed to count as our start value.

Another way to limit the output of this infinite iterator is to use another sub-
module from itertools, namely islice. Here’s how:

from itertools import count


from itertools import islice
for i in islice(count(10), 5):
print(i)

#10
#11
#12
#13
#14

In this example we import islice and we loop over count starting at 10 and
ending after 5 items. As you may have guessed, the second argument to islice
is when to stop iterating. But it doesn’t mean “stop when I reach the number
5”. Instead, it means “stop when we’ve reached five iterations”.

cycle(iterable)
The cycle iterator from itertools allows you to create an iterator that will cycle
through a series of values infinitely. Let’s pass it a 3 letter string and see what
happens:
from itertools import cycle
count = 0
for item in cycle('XYZ'):
if count > 7:
break
print(item)
count += 1

#X
#Y
#Z
#X
#Y
#Z
#X
#Y

Here we create a for loop to loop over the infinite cycle of the three letter:
XYZ. Of course, we don’t want to actually cycle forever, so we add a simple
counter to break out of the loop with.

You can also use Python’s next built-in to iterate over the iterators you create
with itertools:

from itertools import cycle


polys = ['triangle', 'square', 'pentagon', 'rectangle']
iterator = cycle(polys)
print (next(iterator))
#'triangle'

print (next(iterator))
#'square'

print (next(iterator))
#'pentagon'

print (next(iterator))
#'rectangle'

print (next(iterator))
#'triangle'

print (next(iterator))
#'square'

In the code above, we create a simple list of polygons and pass them to cycle.
We save our new iterator to a variable and then we pass that variable to the
next function. Every time we call next, it returns the next value in the

iterator. Since this iterator is infinite, we can call next all day long and never
run out of items.

repeat(object)
The repeat iterators will return an object an object over and over again
forever unless you set its times argument. It is quite similar to cycle except
that it doesn’t cycle over a set of values repeatedly. Let’s take a look at a simple
example:

from itertools import repeat


repeat(5, 5)
repeat(5, 5)

iterator = repeat(5, 5)
print (next(iterator))
#5

print (next(iterator))
#5

print (next(iterator))
#5

print (next(iterator))
#5

print (next(iterator))
#5

print (next(iterator))
#Traceback (most recent call last):
# File "/usercode/__ed_file.py", line 21, in <module>
# print (next(iterator))
#StopIteration:

Here we import repeat and tell it to repeat the number 5 five times. Then we
call next on our new iterator six times to see if it works correctly. When you
run this code, you will see that StopIteration gets raised because we have run
out of values in our iterator.

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