How should I handle inclusive ranges in Python?

Question

I am working in a domain in which ranges are conventionally described inclusively. I have human-readable descriptions such as from A to B , which represent rang

Answer 1

Without writing your own class, the function seems to be the way to go. What i can think of at most is not storing actual lists, just returning generators for the range you care about. Since we're now talking about usage syntax - here is what you could do

def closed_range(slices):
    slice_parts = slices.split(':')
    [start, stop, step] = map(int, slice_parts)
    num = start
    if start <= stop and step > 0:
        while num <= stop:
            yield num
            num += step
    # if negative step
    elif step < 0:
        while num >= stop:
            yield num
            num += step

And then use as:

list(closed_range('1:5:2'))
[1,3,5]

Of course you'll need to also check for other forms of bad input if anyone else is going to use this function.