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

Question

I have written a custom container object.

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

__iter__(self)

Howe

Answer 1

The "iterable interface" in python consists of two methods __next__() and __iter__(). The __next__ function is the most important, as it defines the iterator behavior - that is, the function determines what value should be returned next. The __iter__() method is used to reset the starting point of the iteration. Often, you will find that __iter__() can just return self when __init__() is used to set the starting point.

See the following code for defining a Class Reverse which implements the "iterable interface" and defines an iterator over any instance from any sequence class. The __next__() method starts at the end of the sequence and returns values in reverse order of the sequence. Note that instances from a class implementing the "sequence interface" must define a __len__() and a __getitem__() method.

class Reverse:
    """Iterator for looping over a sequence backwards."""
    def __init__(self, seq):
        self.data = seq
        self.index = len(seq)

    def __iter__(self):
        return self

    def __next__(self):
        if self.index == 0:
            raise StopIteration
        self.index = self.index - 1
        return self.data[self.index]

>>> rev = Reverse('spam')
>>> next(rev)   # note no need to call iter()
'm'
>>> nums = Reverse(range(1,10))
>>> next(nums)
9