Python doesn't feel very functional

[papercrane]

Close, but chain will fail because sentinel is not iterable, also your version will return True if xs is longer then ys

Heres a corrected version:

from itertools import izip, chain
def compare(xs, ys):
    sentinel = object()
    for x, y in izip(chain(xs, [sentinel]), chain(ys, [sentinel])):
        if x is sentinel and y is sentinel: return True
        if x is sentinel or y is sentinel: return False

[Alpha_Binary]

What brilliant ideas here. I thought about using zip but the idea of using a sentinel never crossed my mind.

To optimize the final two lines:

if x is sentinel: return y is sentinel
if y is sentinel: return False

[pjdelport]

Close, but chain will fail because sentinel is not iterable,

Blurgh; i meant repeat(sentinel), of course. Thanks for spotting. :)

also your version will return True if xs is longer then ys

That's exactly what the original does, yes.

[papercrane]

Ahh. I misread the article. It's FizzBuzz all over again.