Python deque of strings

Question

msg = 'afdssav'
MYQ = deque(msg)
MYPQ.append('asdf')

Here I am trying to create a deque of strings, however when I pop elements or try to read elements from it using Python 2.7 I get char by char instead.

How can I make it such that it would return the strings the same way I insert them?

i.e. I want MYQ[1] to be 'asdf' and MYQ.pop() to return msg.

Answer 1

Probably like this:

MYQ = deque([msg])

Demo:

In [1]: from collections import deque

In [2]: msg = 'afdssav'

In [3]: myq = deque([msg])

In [4]: myq.append('asdf')

In [5]: myq
Out[5]: deque(['afdssav', 'asdf'])

The call signature of deque is:

deque([iterable[, maxlen]]) --> deque object

Strings are iterable, but when you iterate over a string, you get single characters. Hence the behavior you see:

In [7]: deque(msg)
Out[7]: deque(['a', 'f', 'd', 's', 's', 'a', 'v'])

You want to give deque an iterable that would produce the entire string.