Comments on: Fun with generators http://efford.org/blog/archives/40 Random musings on Python, software engineering, the web & other stuff Thu, 04 Dec 2008 00:57:02 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.0.4 by: fitzgeraldsteele http://efford.org/blog/archives/40#comment-32448 Fri, 25 Apr 2008 03:39:13 +0000 http://efford.org/blog/archives/40#comment-32448 I had the same first impression of generators! I had a similar 'aha' moment with generators in the last month or so. I wanted to extend feedparser so that it would follow paging feeds. My first implementation was a bit cludgy. Then I took a couple hours to actually read about generators. I ended up with much cleaner code, fewer lines, much less memory consumption, and a much more 'pythonic' interface to my pagingfeedparser. something like for page in pagingfeedparser.parse(): I had the same first impression of generators! I had a similar ‘aha’ moment with generators in the last month or so. I wanted to extend feedparser so that it would follow paging feeds. My first implementation was a bit cludgy. Then I took a couple hours to actually read about generators. I ended up with much cleaner code, fewer lines, much less memory consumption, and a much more ‘pythonic’ interface to my pagingfeedparser. something like

for page in pagingfeedparser.parse():

]]> by: Nick http://efford.org/blog/archives/40#comment-32419 Thu, 24 Apr 2008 18:46:07 +0000 http://efford.org/blog/archives/40#comment-32419 Good point. Memory use is thing that's always come top of my list when thinking of the potential benefits of generators. David Beazley's post suggested other benefits that I hadn't really grokked - like the fact that a 'pipeline' approach leads to cleaner, much more readable code. Good point. Memory use is thing that’s always come top of my list when thinking of the potential benefits of generators. David Beazley’s post suggested other benefits that I hadn’t really grokked - like the fact that a ‘pipeline’ approach leads to cleaner, much more readable code.

]]> by: Jay P http://efford.org/blog/archives/40#comment-32402 Thu, 24 Apr 2008 15:11:09 +0000 http://efford.org/blog/archives/40#comment-32402 One great use for generators is to save memory. I had a program once that would grind to a halt on older machines. Couldn't figure it out at first. Turned out I was using an iterator expression to build an ENORMOUS list, and then run through it. Simply changed it to a generator expression, and suddenly it ran without eating all the machine's RAM. There was no point in building the list first, I just needed to iterate over the elements. One great use for generators is to save memory. I had a program once that would grind to a halt on older machines. Couldn’t figure it out at first. Turned out I was using an iterator expression to build an ENORMOUS list, and then run through it.

Simply changed it to a generator expression, and suddenly it ran without eating all the machine’s RAM. There was no point in building the list first, I just needed to iterate over the elements.

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