Dive Into Python

Example 16.10. Introducing map

>>> def double(n):
...     return n*2
...     
>>> li = [1, 2, 3, 5, 9, 10, 256, -3]
>>> map(double, li)                       
[2, 4, 6, 10, 18, 20, 512, -6]
>>> [double(n) for n in li]               
[2, 4, 6, 10, 18, 20, 512, -6]
>>> newlist = []
>>> for n in li:                          
...     newlist.append(double(n))
...     
>>> newlist
[2, 4, 6, 10, 18, 20, 512, -6]

	map takes a function and a list[8] and returns a new list by calling the function with each element of the list in order. In this case, the function simply multiplies each element by 2.
	You could accomplish the same thing with a list comprehension. List comprehensions were first introduced in Python 2.0; map has been around forever.
	You could, if you insist on thinking like a Visual Basic programmer, use a for loop to accomplish the same thing.

Example 16.11. map with lists of mixed datatypes

>>> li = [5, 'a', (2, 'b')]
>>> map(double, li)                       
[10, 'aa', (2, 'b', 2, 'b')]

As a side note, I'd like to point out that map works just as well with lists of mixed datatypes, as long as the function you're using correctly handles each type. In this case, the double function simply multiplies the given argument by 2, and Python Does The Right Thing depending on the datatype of the argument. For integers, this means actually multiplying it by 2; for strings, it means concatenating the string with itself; for tuples, it means making a new tuple that has all of the elements of the original, then all of the elements of the original again.

All right, enough play time. Let's look at some real code.

Example 16.12. map in regression.py

    filenameToModuleName = lambda f: os.path.splitext(f)[0] 
    moduleNames = map(filenameToModuleName, files)          

	As you saw in Section 4.7, “Using lambda Functions”, lambda defines an inline function. And as you saw in Example 6.17, “Splitting Pathnames”, os.path.splitext takes a filename and returns a tuple (name, extension). So filenameToModuleName is a function which will take a filename and strip off the file extension, and return just the name.
	Calling map takes each filename listed in files, passes it to the function filenameToModuleName, and returns a list of the return values of each of those function calls. In other words, you strip the file extension off of each filename, and store the list of all those stripped filenames in moduleNames.

As you'll see in the rest of the chapter, you can extend this type of data-centric thinking all the way to the final goal, which is to define and execute a single test suite that contains the tests from all of those individual test suites.