The “correct” (according to Bourbaki) mathematical notation for an empty
set is “∅" (aka Unicode U+2205, or HTML ∅)
Some time ago, for a project which had a lot of empty sets, I tried to use
this symbol as a short hand for set(). But:
>>> ⦰ = set()
File "<stdin>", line 1
⦰ = set()
^
SyntaxError: invalid character '⦰' (U+29B0)
>>> ø = set()
>>>
In other words, “⦰” is illegal as an identifier in Python (same for ⌀ aka
U+2300 DIAMETER SIGN), but “ø” (aka U+00F8 LATIN SMALL LETTER O WITH
STROKE) is legal !
So I used "⌀" instead of “⦰”, but I eventually dropped the whole idea
because, IIRC, some tools weren’t too happy with it.
Still, I guess it wouldn’t be neither too hard nor two disruptive to accept
“⦰” as well as some other mathematical characters as identifiers in Python.
Since once of the application domains where Python shines nowadays is
mathematics (numerical, but also symbolic), I think it’s a shame that we
are preventing to use the proper unicode characters to designate some
universal mathematical objects.
More info here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Null_sign
S.
On 13 Mar 2022 at 22:52:16, joao.p.f.batista...@gmail.com wrote:
> Currently:
> l = [] # new empty list
> t = () # new empty tuple
> s = set() # new empty set (no clean and consistent way of initializing
> regarding the others) <<<
> d = {} # new empty dictionary
>
> Possible solution:
> s = {} # new empty set
> d = {:} # new empty dictionary (the ":" is a reference to key-value pairs)
>
> Current workaround at least for consistency:
> l = list() # new empty list
> t = tuple() # new empty tuple
> s = set() # new empty set
> d = dict() # new empty dictionary
>
> However, it doesn't feel right to not be able to initialize an empty set
> as cleanly and consistently as lists, tuples and dictionaries in both forms.
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