On Tue, May 6, 2014 at 8:38 PM, Marko Rauhamaa <ma...@pacujo.net> wrote: > Chris Angelico <ros...@gmail.com>: > >>> characters, words, lines = stats.read() >> >> That's not really pass-by-reference, though. What you're doing is >> output parameters, which are usually implemented in C with pointers, >> but in Python with a return tuple. > > Correct, but it is worth questioning the question itself: what do you > need pass-by-reference for? A very common case is returning multiple > values. For that, Python has other idioms available.
Oh, absolutely. As in many other cases, you shouldn't ask "How do I do <some non-Python idiom> in Python", but should ask "How do I accomplish <some goal> in Python". Only in a few cases is the first question reasonable (eg "How do I call this function from Python", naming some function from a C library), and even then, it's semantically arguable. ChrisA -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
