list with infinite elments

Question

I need to operate on two separate infinite list of numbers, but could not find a way to generate, store and operate on it in python.

Can any one please suggest me a way to handle infinite Arithmetic Progession or any series and how to operate on them considering the fact the minimal use of memory and time.

Thanks every one for their suggestions in advance.

Answer 1

You are looking for a python generator instead:

def infinitenumbers():
    count = 0
    while True:
        yield count
        count += 1

The itertools package comes with a pre-built count generator.

>>> import itertools
>>> c = itertools.count()
>>> next(c)
0
>>> next(c)
1
>>> for i in itertools.islice(c, 5):
...     print i
...
2
3
4
5
6

Answer 2

This is where the iterator comes in. You can't have an infinite list of numbers, but you can have an infinite iterator.

import itertools
arithmetic_progression = itertools.count(start,step) #from the python docs

The docs for Python2 can be found here