Question

I am looking for something like range, but one that will allow me to specify the start and the end value, along with how many numbers I need in the collection which I want to use in a similar fashion range is used in for loops.

Answer 1

No, there is no built-in function to do what you want. But, you can always define your own range:

def my_range(start, end, how_many):
    incr = float(end - start)/how_many
    return [start + i*incr for i in range(how_many)]

And you can using in a for-loop in the same way you would use range:

>>> for i in my_range(0, 1, 10):
...     print i
... 
0.0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0.6
0.7
0.8
0.9

EDIT: If you want both start and end to be part of the result, your my_range function would be:

def my_range(start, end, how_many):
    incr = float(end - start)/(how_many - 1)
    return [start + i*incr for i in range(how_many-1)] + [end]

And in your for-loop:

>>> for i in my_range(0, 1, 10):
...   print i
... 
0.0
0.111111111111
0.222222222222
0.333333333333
0.444444444444
0.555555555556
0.666666666667
0.777777777778
0.888888888889
1