John Salerno wrote: > Is there a way to assign multiple variables to the same value, but so > that an identity test still evaluates to False? > > e.g.: > > >>> w = x = y = z = False > >>> w > False > >>> x > False > >>> w == x > True > >>> w is x > True # not sure if this is harmful > > The first line above is the only way I know to do it, but it seems to > necessarily lead to the true identity test.
Yes, and there is no way around that - given that python has not an overloadable assignment operator as e.g. C++ offers (praise the BDFL!). The semantics of what looks like assignment in python is "I've got a fancy object somewhere, and now I want to be able to refer to it by that nice name here". Actually things are somewhat more complicated in case of list/dictionary element assignment, but for your case that is irrelevant. Besides, depending on what you assign (e.g. integers, as well as the boolean constants I guess) you might not even have the choice to guarantee how the identity test results anyway. Consider this: >>> a = 1000000 >>> b = 1000000 >>> a is b False >>> a = 100 >>> b = 100 >>> a is b False >>> a = 10 >>> b = 10 >>> a is b True >>> I can't imagine what you're actually after here, but assuming that you really need this and that we're talking "real" objects here, sequence unpacking and assignment might come handy here, together with a small list-comp: a, b, c = [copy.copy(o) for i in xrange(3)] Diez -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
