[Python-Dev] SyntaxError: can't assign to function call (original) (raw)

Guido van Rossum guido at python.org
Fri Aug 11 16:59:34 CEST 2006

On 8/11/06, Neal Becker <ndbecker2 at gmail.com> wrote:

Guido van Rossum wrote:

> On 8/10/06, James Y Knight <foom at fuhm.net> wrote: >> It makes just as much sense as assigning to an array access, and the >> semantics would be pretty similar. > > No. Array references (x[i]) and attribute references (x.a) represent > "locations". Function calls represent values. This is no different > than the distinction between lvalues and rvalues in C. > Except this syntax is valid in c++ where X() is a constructor call: X(whatever) += 2; is (or can be) valid c++

As I said before, C++ has a fundamentally different concept of what assignment means; it is of no use for understanding Python's assignment. Actually it is a big hindrance knowing about C++ assignment because it's difficult to explain to C++ users why Python can't and won't allow assignment to be overloaded.

-- --Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)

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