Using Python tuples as vectors
- by Etaoin
I need to represent immutable vectors in Python ("vectors" as in linear algebra, not as in programming). The tuple seems like an obvious choice.
The trouble is when I need to implement things like addition and scalar multiplication. If a and b are vectors, and c is a number, the best I can think of is this:
tuple(map(lambda x,y: x + y, a, b)) # add vectors 'a' and 'b'
tuple(map(lambda x: x * c, a)) # multiply vector 'a' by scalar 'c'
which seems inelegant; there should be a clearer, simpler way to get this done -- not to mention avoiding the call to tuple, since map returns a list.
Is there a better option?
