C++ for-loop vs. Python for-loop

 ̄綄美尐妖づ 提交于 2020-07-15 09:51:12

问题


I'm currently learning Python as I'm taking a data mining class. I was making a for-loop to make a noisy data file to do smoothing and I found a peculiarity on Python for-loop that I couldn't understand nor go around.

So I made this simple testing C++ and Python codes. C++ one works, but Python one doesn't.

The reason is that C++ allows arbitrary updates on the counter variable i within the for-loop block, but Python doesn't.

On Python code, I try to update i arbitrarily by doing i += 1 within the while-loop, but if you look at the outputs for At the first part of the loop, i = SOMETHING, Python is arbitrarily updating the i only in the while-loop that's in the for-loop, but then reverts the value back when it exits that while-loop. (Outputs are in the comments at the bottom)

Why is that? Is it a scope issue? (Both C++ and Python are statically scoped) Is it because of their types? (I'm only familiar with statically-typed languages like C++ and Java, and not dynamically-typed languages like Python)

On Python, it seems like the for-loop is actually a function with return-by-value parameter i which ignores all the changes on the parameter that took place inside the function.

I tried:

  • Setting the counter i as a global variable.
  • using range(0, len(input), *variable*), but I still failed to replicate it.
  • Researched if it can be solved by using Static variable or similar sort on Python (I think it's irrelevant?)

On Python, how would you replicate this C++ code? Could you enlighten me on why those for-loops behave differently? Thank you.

This is C++ code that's working correctly:

#include <stdio.h>
#include <string>
#include <iostream>

using namespace std;

int main()
{
    string input = "abc defg";
    string eachWord = "";

    for(int i = 0; i < input.length(); i++)
    {
        cout << "At the first part of the loop, i = " << i << " ." << endl;

        while(input[i] != ' ' && input[i] != '\0')
        {
            eachWord += input[i];
            i++;
        }

        cout << eachWord << endl;
        cout << "At the last part of the loop, i = " << i << " ." << endl << endl;
        eachWord = "";
    }
}

/*
Output:
At the first part of the loop, i = 0 .
abc
At the last part of the loop, i = 3 .

At the first part of the loop, i = 4 .
defg
At the last part of the loop, i = 8 .
*/

And this is the Python code that's not working correctly, that I tried to make to replicate the C++ code:

input = "abc defg"
eachWord = ''

for i in range(len(input)):
    print("At the first part of the loop, i = ", i, ".")
    while(input[i] != ' ' and input[i] != '\0'):
        eachWord += input[i]
        i += 1

    print(eachWord)
    print("At the last part of the loop, i = ", i, ".")
    print()
    eachWord = ''

"""
Output:
At the first part of the loop, i =  0 .
abc
At the last part of the loop, i =  3 .

At the first part of the loop, i =  1 .
bc
At the last part of the loop, i =  3 .

At the first part of the loop, i =  2 .
c
At the last part of the loop, i =  3 .

At the first part of the loop, i =  3 .

At the last part of the loop, i =  3 .

At the first part of the loop, i =  4 .
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "main.py", line 6, in <module>
    while(input[i] != ' ' and input[i] != '\0'):
IndexError: string index out of range
"""

回答1:


First, replicating a c/c++ structure is not the best way to approach solving a problem. You will inevitably end up fighting against the language instead of benefiting from its strengths.

Secondly, to convert a c/c++ for loop, you have to realize that it is actually a while in disguise:

for (<initialization>,<condition>,<increment>)
{
    // your stuff
}

Because Python for loops override the control variable (i) at each iteration, they can not translate directly to C/C++ loops that modify the control variable within their code block. These kinds of loops translate to this in Python (which is unwieldy and cumbersome):

<initialization>
while <condition>:
     # your stuff
     <increment>

for your particular example:

i = 0
while i < len(input):
   # ...
   i += 1

A more pythonic translation of you code would look more like this:

eachword = ''
for character in input:
    if  character in [' ','\0']: # will drop last word because no \0 at end of strings
        print(eachword)
        eachword = ''
    else:
        eachword += character 

strings in python don't have a nul character at the end so the last word will likely be dropped unless your input comes from a non-standard source

Python has a built-in function to separate words in a string:

for eachword in input.split():
    print(eachword)



回答2:


There are two main problems with the python I see;

Firstly the for loop does not work in the same way as the cpp for loop: python will reset i to go through the range, what you did with i inside the previous loops will be lost. Secondly python does not have a termination char on its strings like cpp does:

input = "abc defg"
eachWord = ''

i = 0
while(i < len(input)):
    print("At the first part of the loop, i = ", i, ".")
    while(i < len(input) and input[i] != ' '):
        eachWord += input[i]
        i += 1

    print(eachWord)
    print("At the last part of the loop, i = ", i, ".")
    print()
    eachWord = ''
    i += 1


来源:https://stackoverflow.com/questions/61141152/c-for-loop-vs-python-for-loop

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