Making objects iterable?

Question

I'm trying to iterate over each row in a list of lists, append an element from each row to a new list, then find the unique elements in the new list.

I understand that I can do this easily with a for loop. I'm trying a different route because I want to learn more about classes and functions.

Here's an example of the list of lists. The first row is the header:

legislators = [
 ['last_name', 'first_name', 'birthday', 'gender', 'type', 'state', 'party'],
 ['Bassett', 'Richard', '1745-04-02', 'M', 'sen', 'DE', 'Anti-Administration'],
 ['Bland', 'Theodorick', '1742-03-21', '', 'rep', 'VA', ''],
 ['Burke', 'Aedanus', '1743-06-16', '', 'rep', 'SC', ''],
 ['Carroll', 'Daniel', '1730-07-22', 'M', 'rep', 'MD', ''],
 ['Clymer', 'George', '1739-03-16', 'M', 'rep', 'PA', ''],
 ['Contee', 'Benjamin', '', 'M', 'rep', 'MD', ''],...]

Here's my code:

import csv
f = open("legislators.csv")
csvreader = csv.reader(f)
legislators = list(csvreader)

class Dataset:
    def __init__(self, data):
        self.header = data[0] #Isolate header from CSV file
        self.data = data[1:] #Subset CSV data to remove header

legislators_dataset = Dataset(legislators)

def the_set_maker(dataset):
    gender = []
    for each in dataset:
        gender.append(each[3])
    return set(gender)

t=the_set_maker(legislators_dataset)
print(t)

I get the following error:

TypeErrorTraceback (most recent call last)
<ipython-input-1-d65cb459931b> in <module>()
     20     return set(gender)
     21
---> 22 t=the_set_maker(legislators_dataset)
     23 print(t)

<ipython-input-1-d65cb459931b> in the_set_maker(dataset)
     16 def the_set_maker(dataset):
     17     gender = []
---> 18     for each in dataset:
     19         gender.append(each[3])
     20     return set(gender)

TypeError: 'Dataset' object is not iterable

I think the answer is to try to create a method using def __iter__(self) in my Dataset class, but I haven't been able to get this to work. Is this the right track? If not, what's a better one?

Answer 1

According to the documentation for __iter__:

This method should return a new iterator object that can iterate over all the objects in the container.

You might try the following class definition:

class Dataset:
    def __init__(self, data):
        self.header = data[0] #Isolate header from CSV file
        self.data = data[1:] #Subset CSV data to remove header

    def __iter__(self):
        return iter(self.data)

If you're open to trying new options, consider using Pandas:

import pandas as pd
df = pd.read_csv('legislators.csv')
t=df['gender']

Or, if you really want to read in the CSV yourself,

df = pd.DataFrame(legislators[1:], columns=legislators[0])

Answer 2

As you mentioned, you'll need to implement __iter__ in class Dataset. Note that this is actually the set(...) call that's throwing the error, since it iterates through your class to enumerate the set elements.

Luckily your set elements are likely just Dataset.data, which makes this easy to write Dataset.__iter__.

class Dataset(object):
    ...

    def __iter__(self):
        return iter(self)

I would point out, however, that your the_set_maker function seems a little too specialized to be top-level. It's also a bit trivial, since it's literally set([el[3] for el in container]). I would put this in Dataset as well.

class Dataset(object):
    ...

    def to_set(self):
        return set([el[3] for el in self.data])
        # Note that this throws away your header!

Answer 3

you need to change a little

class Dataset:
    i = 0

    def __init__(self, data):
        self.header = data[0] #Isolate header from CSV file
        self.data = data[1:] #Subset CSV data to remove header

    def __iter__(self):
        return self
    def __next__(self):
        return self.next()

    def next(self):
        if self.i < len(self.data):
            self.i += 1
            return self.data[self.i-1]
        else:
            raise StopIteration()