This is the difference between mutable and immutable types. In this sense it is consistent.
If you want to do the former in one shot: h = dict(l) Also, you shouldn't use "1", I mean "l", as a variable name. It gets confusing because "l", I mean "1", looks a lot like "1", I mean "l". James On Thursday 08 September 2005 16:03, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > Let's say I define a list of pairs as follows: > >>l = [('d', 3), ('a', 2), ('b', 1)] > > Can anyone explain why this does not work? > > >>h = {}.update(l) > > and instead I have to go: > >>h = {} > >>h.update(l) > > to initialize a dictionary with the given list of pairs? > > when an analagous operation on strings works fine: > >>s = "".join(["d","o","g"]) > > Seems inconsistent. > > thanks, > Scott -- James Stroud UCLA-DOE Institute for Genomics and Proteomics Box 951570 Los Angeles, CA 90095 http://www.jamesstroud.com/ -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list