list assignment

[Norvell Spearman]

In "Learning Python," by Lutz and Ascher, there's a table showing different 
assignment statement forms.  One form shown is list assignment.  The authors 
give this as an example:

 [spam, ham] = ['yum', 'YUM']

I don't see how this is any different than a tuple unpacking assignment:

 >>> a, b = 1, 2
 >>> a, b
 (1, 2)
 >>> [a, b] = [1, 2]
 >>> a, b
 (1, 2)

In both instances the names a and b are both mapped to 1 and 2 so why are there 
two different forms?

Thanks for any answers.

--
Norvell Spearman
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Re: list assignment

[Norvell Spearman]

Raymond Hettinger wrote:
> It's not different.  They are ways of writing the same thing.

Lutz and Ascher have tuple and list assignment as separate entries in their 
assignment statement forms table so I was expecting there to be some 
difference; thanks for setting me straight.

--
Norvell Spearman
-- 
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Re: list assignment

[Norvell Spearman]

Jeffrey Schwab wrote:
> TMTOWTDI, after all. :)

A bit ironic that that's the official motto of Perl, don't you think?

--
Norvell Spearman
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