Python has a quite mighty tool: Generators.
Generators help you to program iterators. They look almost like normal functions, but they have yield as a special keyword. yield is used instead of return.
Imagine you wanted to display n Fibonacci numbers. This could be your normal approach:
#!/usr/bin/python
# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
def fibonacci(n):
""" Build and return a list of the first
n >= 2 Fibonacci numbers """
fibList = [1, 1]
while len(fibList) < n:
newFib = fibList[-1] + fibList[-2]
fibList.append(newFib)
return fibList
for nr, fib in enumerate(fibonacci(100)):
print("The %i-th Fibonacci-Nr is %i" % (nr, fib))
The disadvantage of this approach is that you have to keep every element of the sequence in memory. Of course, you could write something like this:
#!/usr/bin/python
# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
def fib(n):
""" Calculate the n-th fibonacci number. """
if n == 0:
return 0
elif n == 1:
return 1
else:
return fib(n-1) + fib(n-2)
for nr in xrange(1, 100):
print("The %i-th Fibonacci-Nr is %i" % (nr, fib(nr)))
This needs much less memory, but much more time. You have to recalculate the first few fibonacci numbers every time.
A generator could look like this:
#!/usr/bin/python
# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
def fibGenerator():
""" A python fibonacci generator """
a, b = 1, 1
while 1:
yield a
a, b = b, a + b
myGenerator = fibGenerator()
for nr in xrange(1,100):
print("The %i-th Fibonacci-Nr is %i" % (nr, myGenerator.next()))