How to implement __iter__(self) for a container object (Python)

I have written a custom container object.

According to this page, I need to implement this method on my object:

__iter__(self)

However, upon following up the link to Iterator Types in the Python reference manual, there are no examples given of how to implement your own.

Can someone post a snippet (or link to a resource), that shows how to do this?

The container I am writing, is a map (i.e. stores values by unique keys). dicts can be iterated like this:

for k, v in mydict.items()

In this case I need to be able to return two elements (a tuple?) in the iterator. It is still not clear how to implement such an iterator (despite the several answers that have been kindly provided). Could someone please shed some more light on how to implement an iterator for a map-like container object? (i.e. a custom class that acts like a dict)?

Solution 1:

I normally would use a generator function. Each time you use a yield statement, it will add an item to the sequence.

The following will create an iterator that yields five, and then every item in some_list.

def __iter__(self):
   yield 5
   yield from some_list

Pre-3.3, yield from didn't exist, so you would have to do:

def __iter__(self):
   yield 5
   for x in some_list:
      yield x

Solution 2:

Another option is to inherit from the appropriate abstract base class from the `collections module as documented here.

In case the container is its own iterator, you can inherit from collections.Iterator. You only need to implement the next method then.

An example is:

>>> from collections import Iterator
>>> class MyContainer(Iterator):
...     def __init__(self, *data):
...         self.data = list(data)
...     def next(self):
...         if not self.data:
...             raise StopIteration
...         return self.data.pop()
...         
...     
... 
>>> c = MyContainer(1, "two", 3, 4.0)
>>> for i in c:
...     print i
...     
... 
4.0
3
two
1

While you are looking at the collections module, consider inheriting from Sequence, Mapping or another abstract base class if that is more appropriate. Here is an example for a Sequence subclass:

>>> from collections import Sequence
>>> class MyContainer(Sequence):
...     def __init__(self, *data):
...         self.data = list(data)
...     def __getitem__(self, index):
...         return self.data[index]
...     def __len__(self):
...         return len(self.data)
...         
...     
... 
>>> c = MyContainer(1, "two", 3, 4.0)
>>> for i in c:
...     print i
...     
... 
1
two
3
4.0

NB: Thanks to Glenn Maynard for drawing my attention to the need to clarify the difference between iterators on the one hand and containers that are iterables rather than iterators on the other.