On Dec 21, 6:50 pm, alex23 <wuwe...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Dec 22, 8:25 am, Eric <einazaki...@yahoo.com> wrote: > > > This surprises me, can someone tell me why it shouldn't? I figure if > > I want to create and initialize three scalars the just do "a=b=c=7", > > for example, so why not extend it to arrays. > > The thing to remember is that everything is an object, and that it's > better to think of variables as labels on an object. > > So: a=b=c=7 means that _one_ integer object with the value of 7 can be > referenced using any of the labels a, b or c. x=y=z=[] means that > _one_ empty list can be referenced using x, y or z. > > The difference is that the value of a number object _cannot be > changed_ ('immutable') while a list can be modified to add or remove > items ('mutable'). a=10 just reassigns the label a to an integer > object of value 10. x.append("foo") _modifies_ the list referred to by > x, which is the same list known as y & z. >
> > Also, is there a more pythonic way to do "x=[], y=[], z=[]"? > > I'd say that _is_ the most pythonic way, it's very obvious in its > intent (or would be with appropriate names). If it bothers you that > much: > Thanks for the explanation. I guess from what I've seen of Python so far I was expecting something more, I don't know, compact. Anyway, it doesn't bother me, at least not enough to go and do something like this: > def listgen(count, default=[]): > for _ in xrange(count): > yield default[:] > > x, y, z = listgen(3) Thanks, eric -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list