Python join: why is it string.join(list) instead of list.join(string)?

Question

I am confused about the usage of string.join(list) instead of list.join(string), for instance see this code: my_list = ["Hey", "Fish"] print my_list.join("-") # Produce: "Hey-Fish" I think this code seems nicer than this one: my_list = ["Hey", "Fish"] print "-".join(my_list) # Produce: "Hey-Fish" Can someone tell me the reason behind this? Select the correct answer from above options

Answer 1

the reason behind this is that we can join iterable, not only list, result and 'joiner' are always strings too. E.g. import urllib2 print '\n###########\n'.join( urllib2.urlopen('https://bigdataonlinetraining.us/community '))