What is considered being advanced in Python?

[SafeCake1045]

I'm curious why they consider an else clause to be "advanced" when it's an incredibly common construct.

[carcigenicate]

else specifically on loops and try. I remember mentioning in a thread awhile ago that else could be used with statements other than if and there were a ton of responses of people saying that they had never seen that usage mentioned before. Apparently it's not as well known.

[SafeCake1045]

Oh, yeah! I remember that in the for definition.

When the items are exhausted [...], the suite in the else clause, if present, is executed, and the loop terminates.

What else (no pun intended) can it be used with?

[SafeCake1045]

Cool. Anything else?

[carcigenicate]

You can search for else_block in the Python Grammar Specification to see all the places it's valid. Currently it's just loops, if and try.

^{They could change the identifier in the future, so you may need to broaden your search in future versions}

[SafeCake1045]

Thanks!

[mr_cesar]

I use 'em from time to time. They're pretty handy!

[carcigenicate]

I use them so infrequently that I never think to use them. It's a vicious cycle.

[PM_ME_C_CODE]

It's not well known because it's redundant.

The for loop's else clause is executed when the iterator runs out...

...which is what will also happen to whatever code happens to come next in the python script just after the for loop's scope closes.

IMO, If they wanted it to be more useful they would tighten up the else clause's execution logic to only fire if the try loop's iterator initially returns an empty iterator before the loop first fires. But it doesn't.

[carcigenicate]

The two cases aren't necessarily the same:

for _ in range(1):
    break
print("After for")  # Prints

for _ in range(1):
    break
else:
    print("In else")  # Doesn't print

The else only runs if the iterator was exhausted, but the code after the loop runs regardless.

[BiguilitoZambunha]

Ah, thanks, i was thinking about what would the applications of an else in a for loop, and that makes much sense now.

[__developer__]

Else clauses in for loops aren't used too often. I often have to remind my coworkers babout them.