If range() is a generator in Python 3.3, why can I not call next() on a range

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Iterables are objects that iter can be used on to obtain an iterator. Iterators are objects that can be iterated through using next. Generators is a category of iterators (generator functions and generator expressions).

range is a class of immutable iterable objects. Their iteration behavior can be compared to lists: you can’t call next directly on them; you have to get an iterator by using iter.
So no, range is not a generator.
You may be thinking, “why didn’t they make it directly iterable”? Well, ranges have some useful properties that wouldn’t be possible that way:

• They are immutable, so they can be used as dictionary keys.
• They have the start, stop and step attributes (since Python 3.3), count and index methods and they support in, len and __getitem__ operations.

• You can iterate over the same range multiple times.

  myrange = range(1, 21, 2) myrange.start 1 myrange.step 2 myrange.index(17) 8 myrange.index(18) Traceback (most recent call last): File “", line 1, in ValueError: 18 is not in range it = iter(myrange) it

  <range_iterator object at 0x7f504a9be960>  »> next(it) 1  »> next(it) 3  »> next(it) 5

Another nice feature of range objects is that they have a __contains__ method which can be used to test whether a value is in a range: 5 in range(10) => True