Programming, computers, etc. [Serious]

[Anonymously Famous]

Internally it does it through tuples (a type of list or array), which can be unpacked to several variables.

Here's something I did in the Python interactive interpreter just now:

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>>> def someFunction(parameter):
	#Do some stuff
	return 1, 2

>>> a, b = someFunction(5)
>>> a
1
>>> b
2

You can use any list-like data structure.

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>>> def someFunction(parameter):
	#Do some stuff
	return "ab"

>>> a, b = someFunction(None)
>>> a
'a'
>>> b
'b'

There are also iterators, that return a series of items, one at a time:

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>>> def fibonacci(maxNumber):
	a = 0
	b = 1
	if maxNumber > a: yield a
	if maxNumber > b: yield b
	while b < maxNumber:
		a, b = b, a + b
		if b < maxNumber: yield b

		
>>> for i in fibonacci(15):
	print i,

	
0 1 1 2 3 5 8 13

There's a function that allows you to traverse a folder structure that uses an iterator of multiple return values.

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>>> import os
>>> for currentDirectory, directories, files in os.walk("folderPath"):
	for fileName in files:
		doStuff(os.path.join(currentDirectory, fileName))

[atomtengeralattjaro]

hey that's pretty cool.

This reminds me of Matlab. i have a course where we learn some basic stuff in Matlab.

[Anonymously Famous]

In Python 3, which is the current version (though most people still use Python 2), you can even designate a "throw away" variable, which is a list of the other values that you don't want to keep.

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>>> a,b,*c = 1,2,3,4,5
>>> c
[3, 4, 5]

[atomtengeralattjaro]

huh?
what are a and b in this case? you marked c with a star, that makes it an array so that 1 and 2 will be in a and b, and any subsequent values will be in c? what makes it "throw away" then?

[Anonymously Famous]

I guess "throw away" is the wrong term. More like "the rest."

The star signifies that they should all be packed in an array, and you can have the array either at the beginning or the end. The first (or last) values will go into each variable until they run into the one with the star. Then the last (or first) several will be put into that variable as an array.

I called it "throw away" because in some cases you only want the first several, and you don't care what's in the rest. But you can definitely use it, too.

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>>> add = lambda x,y: x+y
>>> function, first, *theRest = add,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10
>>> totals = [function(first, y) for y in theRest]
>>> totals
[3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11]

[atomtengeralattjaro]

a-ha! that's cool. i can't imagine where would I use such a thing, but i see it's not pointless.

[john123abc201]

Does anybody know how to install a cursor pack with an ini file?

[atomtengeralattjaro]

depends on the OS i guess..
i have no idea about cursor packs, but if you happen to have the individual .cur or .ani files for the different cursors, you can change them one by one in control panel/mouse/pointers.

[atomtengeralattjaro]

boo! double poast because i never ever do that. Thus, traditionally, I deserve to die.

[MTG09]

It is relative and on topic. Therefore, any kind of necroposting or double posing is excused.

[klinscy]

Blasphemy?

[Anonymously Famous]

Not any kind, but on-topic kinds are.

The other day I finished a Python script that helps my department do stuff. That's cool and all, but the really cool part is:
I made it bilingual (kind of). It works with both Python 2 and Python 3! That's tricky, given some of the differences in standard module locations and the fact that strings are represented differently.

[atomtengeralattjaro]

why not just make a python2 version and a python3 version?

[Anonymously Famous]

Because I wanted to see if I could make one version that worked on both.

[atomtengeralattjaro]

And you won!

btw, here is a contest that I'm probably not going to participate in.

[Anonymously Famous]

Probably not.

[Anonymously Famous]

I'm officially registered for PyCon. This makes me happy.

[atomtengeralattjaro]

have fun gathering.

this looks intriguing.

[Anonymously Famous]

That it does. I'll have to look into it.

Edit: That's it: I'm going to start learning it. I was going to go for a Lisp language for my next endeavor, but Haxe has me intrigued.

[atomtengeralattjaro]

i thought you might like it. i don't think i'll start learning anything else until i've finished the university.