Fredrik Lundh wrote: > it's also mentioned in chapter 4 of the tutorial: > > http://docs.python.org/tut/node6.html#SECTION006710000000000000000 > > "*Important warning*: The default value is evaluated only once. This > makes a difference when the default is a mutable object such as a list, > dictionary, or instances of most classes. "
Perhaps it would be a good idea if Python actually raised a warning (SyntaxWarning?) if you use an unnamed list or dict as a default argument. This would doubtless help quite a few beginners. And for people who really do want that behaviour, working around the warning should involve minimal extra code, with extra clarity thrown in for free. -- Ben Sizer -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
