Which is more Pythonic way?
Question:
I want to write a function to create an empty square matrix have size NxN.
I have 2 ways to write this:
1:
s_matrix = []
create_empty_square_matrix(s_matrix, N)
2:
s_matrix = empty_square_matrix(N)
(Ofcourse, 2 two functions will different a bit. Function create_empty_square_matrix is like a procedure – only manipulate on s_matrix. Function empty_square_matrix create & return a matrix)
Which way is more Pythonic & clearer?
Do you have some suggestions about naming style? I’m not sure about empty_square_matrix & create_empty_square_matrix.
Answers:
I’d always prefer the second way.
The problem with the first is that you pass the object that you want to write to as the paramenter (s_matrix), and the caller of the function will have to know that it must be passed an empty list. What happens if the caller passes a dict, or a list that is not empty?
By the way, if you want to do matrix calculations, you should take a look at the NumPy library, it offers many things that standard Python does not.
I want to write a function to create an empty square matrix have size NxN.
I have 2 ways to write this:
1:
s_matrix = []
create_empty_square_matrix(s_matrix, N)
2:
s_matrix = empty_square_matrix(N)
(Ofcourse, 2 two functions will different a bit. Function create_empty_square_matrix is like a procedure – only manipulate on s_matrix. Function empty_square_matrix create & return a matrix)
Which way is more Pythonic & clearer?
Do you have some suggestions about naming style? I’m not sure about empty_square_matrix & create_empty_square_matrix.
I’d always prefer the second way.
The problem with the first is that you pass the object that you want to write to as the paramenter (s_matrix), and the caller of the function will have to know that it must be passed an empty list. What happens if the caller passes a dict, or a list that is not empty?
By the way, if you want to do matrix calculations, you should take a look at the NumPy library, it offers many things that standard Python does not.