I think you want a closure, which is a function defined within the local namespace of anther function, so that it can access the outer function's variables:
def make_iterator(func):
x = -1
def helper():
nonlocal x
x += 1
return func(x)
return helper
The nonlocal
statement allows the inner function to modify the variable declared in the outer function (otherwise you'd either get an error, or you'd bind your own local variable without changing the outer one). It was only added in Python 3, so if you're still using Python 2, you'll need to wrap the x
value in a mutable data structure, like a list.
Another approach to the same idea is to write class, rather than a function. An instance of a class can be callable (just like a function) if the class defines a __call__
method:
class MyIterator(object):
def __init__(self, func):
self.index = -1
self.func = func
def __call__(self):
self.index += 1
return self.func(self.index)
This can be useful if the state you need to keep track of is more complicated (or should change in more complicated ways) than the simple integer index used in this example. It also works in Python 2 without annoying workarounds.