Python: Careful with equal sign

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December 8th, 2007 mysurface Posted in python | Hits: 21309 |

To store data, object reference to a variable is very easy in python. For example, to assign an integer 5 to a

a=5

Same thing goes to string

str="hello world"

Assign data to a data structured variable, let say list,

L=[1,2,3,4,5]

Even assign a function to a variable.

import sys
wstderr=sys.stderr.write
wstderr("hello world\n")

Observed that all of them uses equal sign, but CAREFUL! Sometimes, they doesn’t work the same way as you expect them to.

In python, some variables are immutable and some are not. For example, string and tuple are immutable, but list and dictionary accept dynamic changes.

Lets look at string in python

>>> str="my snake bites"
>>> str[4]
'n'
>>> str[4]='f'
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "", line 1, in 
TypeError: 'str' object does not support item assignment

You can’t cannot change value of a particular character in string, they are immutable. The value “my snake bites” is actually store in a new blocks of memory and str will be refers to that particular blocks of memory.

When you do this:

str2=str

The content of str is copied to str2, both of them are independent.

Lets look at list now, you are allow to delete or append data dynamically during runtime.

L=[1,2,3,4,5]

IMPORTANT: The value will be stored into a range of memory blocks, and what if you do this?

L2=L

It make L2 refers to the same memory blocks where L points to. Let see!

>>> L=[1,2,3,4,5]
>>> L2=L
>>> L2.append(6)
>>> print L
[1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]

Append values to L2 reflects to L too, they are refers to the same blocks of memory.

OMG! what if I wanna COPY the value from L to L2?

>>> L2=L[0:]
>>> print L2
[1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]
>>> L2.append(7)
>>> print L
[1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]
>>> print L2
[1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]

How about dictionary?
You can use copy() method for that.

>>> D=dict()
>>> D[1]=10
>>> D[2]=20
>>> print D
{1: 10, 2: 20}
>>> D2=D.copy()
>>> print D2
{1: 10, 2: 20}
>>> D2[3]=30
>>> print D2
{1: 10, 2: 20, 3: 30}
>>> print D
{1: 10, 2: 20}

Although all of them uses equal sign, but they act differently, so bare in mind while dive in python.