Avoid re-writing FOR loop for special cases

Question

All my python scripts take in a bool argument called debug, which if True, prints out a load of stuff and does for loop progress bar using tqdm as shown below

from tqdm import tqdm
for i in tqdm(range(1000)):
     ## rest of the calculation

However, I would like to disable the tqdm progress bar when debug is false and I am not sure how to do this other than rewriting the for loop again without tqdm (for debug=False case). Any suggestions on how to do this more elegantly are much appreciated.

Thanks

Answer 1

Define tqdm conditionally:

if debug:
    from tqdm import tqdm
else:
    def tqdm(x):  # Noop version when not in debug mode
        return x

    # Alternative version that's slightly less clear,
    # but probably slightly more performant, due to using built-in:
    tqdm = iter  # Explicitly make it convert the input to an iterator, but do nothing else

That makes tqdm a no-op when not in debug mode, so your original for loop still works without modification or duplication.