On Monday, September 4, 2017 at 3:20:22 AM UTC+1, Chris Angelico wrote: > On Mon, Sep 4, 2017 at 12:05 PM, Steve D'Aprano wrote: > > On Mon, 4 Sep 2017 04:15 am, Stephan Houben wrote: > > > >> Needless to say, according to the definition in Plotkin's paper, Python > >> is "call-by-value". > > > > According to Plotkin's definition, when you pass a value like a 100MB > > string: > > > > "This is a long string of text..." # continues on for millions more > > characters > > > > does the interpreter make a copy of the 100MB string? > > > > If not, then it isn't pass (call) by value. > > This is another proof that you can't divide everything into "pass by > value" vs "pass by reference", unless you mess around with "passing a > reference by value" or other shenanigans. In C, a string is not an > entity; it's simply an array of characters. Arrays are never passed by > value; yet everything in C is passed by value. So you pass a > pointer... by value. > > What would you define LISP's semantics as? Pass by value? Pass by > reference? Pass by name? Pass by immutability? Pass the salt? > > ChrisA
I can't say that I'm too bothered about all this what with "Practicality beats purity" and all that. Still for the definitive guides to Python I always go back to http://effbot.org/zone/call-by-object.htm and https://jeffknupp.com/blog/2012/11/13/is-python-callbyvalue-or-callbyreference-neither/ Kindest regards. Mark Lawrence. -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
