[Python-Dev] Extending tuple unpacking (original) (raw)

Steven Bethard steven.bethard at gmail.com
Tue Oct 11 20:09:01 CEST 2005

Nick Coghlan wrote:

So my vote would actually go for deprecating the use of square brackets to surround an assignment target list - it makes it look like an actual list object should be involved somewhere, but there isn't one.

I've found myself using square brackets a few times for more complicated unpacking, e.g.:

try: x, y = args except ValueError: [x], y = args, None

where I thought that

(x,), y = args, None

would have been more confusing. OTOH, I usually end up rewriting this to

x, = args
y = None

because even the bracketed form is a bit confusing. So I wouldn't really be upset if the brackets went away.

STeVe

You can wordify anything if you just verb it. --- Bucky Katt, Get Fuzzy

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