On Sat, Aug 24, 2013 at 8:52 PM, Krishnan Shankar <i.am.song...@gmail.com> wrote: > Hi Python Friends, > > I came across an example which is as below, > >>>> var = [1, 12, 123, 1234] >>>> var > [1, 12, 123, 1234] >>>> var[:0] > [] >>>> var[:0] = var >>>> var > [1, 12, 123, 1234, 1, 12, 123, 1234] >>>> > > Here in var[:0] = var we are assigning an entire list to the beginning of > itself. So shouldn't it be something like, > > [[1, 12, 123, 1234], 1, 12, 123, 1234] > > It happens when we do the below, > >>>> var = [1, 12, 123, 1234] >>>> var[0] = var >>>> var > [[...], 12, 123, 1234] >>>> > > Literally var[0] = var and var[:0] = var almost meens the same. But why is > the difference in output? Can anyone explain what happens when slicing > assignment and direct assignment.
Are you sure they're almost the same? >>> var[0] 1 >>> var[:0] [] One's a list and one is an integer. It's hard for them to be any more different. var[0] means that you should be setting an element of the list. var[:0] says you want to update a piece of the list, not an element inside it. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
