"harold fellermann" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>if you write > >>> a=A() >an instance of class A is created and bound to the local identifier 'a'. I think it perhaps better to think of the label 'a' being bound to the object rather than vice versa. For one, a label can only be bound (stuck to, like a stick note) to one object at a time while one object can have many labels (and other references) stuck to it. > If you later write > >>> a=5 > the object 5 is reassigned to the same identifier, Or one could say that the label 'a' is removed from the A() object and reassigned to the 5 object. Since the 5 object may have numerous other connections, and since those connections are unaffected by the new connection to 'a', whereas the previous assignment of 'a' is broken, I think it better to say that 'a' is being reassigned, not 5. > deleting whatever value was stored there before. In memory-oriented languages, such as C, names refer to chunks of memory where values are stored and deleted. Assigning a new value to a variable puts a new value in that chunk of memory, necessarily overwriting the old. In object-oriented Python, objects have values and possibly multiple associations with names and slots. If, but only if, 'a' was the last association of its last assigned-to object, then that object is eligible for deletion. > In other words: identifiers don't have types. This and the following I agree with. Terry J. Reedy -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
