Idiomatic Python: 'times' loop [duplicate]

Say I have a function foo that I want to call n times. In Ruby, I would write:

n.times { foo }

In Python, I could write:

for _ in xrange(n): foo()

But that seems like a hacky way of doing things.

My question: Is there an idiomatic way of doing this in Python?

You've already shown the idiomatic way:

for _ in range(n): # or xrange if you are on 2.X
    foo()

Not sure what is "hackish" about this. If you have a more specific use case in mind, please provide more details, and there might be something better suited to what you are doing.

If you want the times method, and you need to use it on your own functions, try this:

def times(self, n, *args, **kwargs):
    for _ in range(n):
        self.__call__(*args, **kwargs)

import new
def repeatable(func):
    func.times = new.instancemethod(times, func, func.__class__)
    return func

now add a @repeatable decorator to any method you need a times method on:

@repeatable
def foo(bar):
    print bar

foo.times(4, "baz") #outputs 4 lines of "baz"

Fastest, cleanest is itertools.repeat:

import itertools

for _ in itertools.repeat(None, n):
    foo()

The question pre-supposes that calling foo() n times is an a priori necessary thing. Where did n come from? Is it the length of something iterable? Then iterate over the iterable. As I am picking up Python, I find that I'm using few to no arbitrary values; there is some more salient meaning behind your n that got lost when it became an integer.

Earlier today I happened upon Nicklaus Wirth's provocative paper for IEEE Computer entitled Good Ideas - Through the Looking Glass (archived version for future readers). In section 4 he brings a different slant on programming constructs that everyone (including himself) has taken for granted but that hold expressive flaws:

"The generality of Algol’s for statement should have been a warning signal to all future designers to always keep the primary purpose of a construct in mind, and to be weary of exaggerated generality and complexity, which may easily become counter-productive."

The algol for is equivalent to the C/Java for, it just does too much. That paper is a useful read if only because it makes one not take for granted so much that we so readily do. So perhaps a better question is "Why would you need a loop that executes an arbitrary number of times?"

Idiomatic Python: 'times' loop [duplicate]

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