Is it bad Python style to return empty iterators rather than None? [closed]

Question

Opinions seem to be mixed on this -- is there a Pythonic "right way" to do this?

Answer 1

I think empty iterator is better because iterating over nothing is faster then first checking if returned value is not None and then iterate over or not.

for x in function():
    do_something()

value = function()
if value is not None:
    for x in value:
        do_something()

Just look at this.

Also normally you dont initialize iter attributes with None, but with empty iter object.

self.list_of_users = []

not

self.list_of_users = None