Neil Schemenauer wrote:
The := would assign but not declare a variable in the current scope.
There are other benefits to such a statement, too, since we can make it similar to other augmented assignments by letting the object being assigned to interfere with the process. a := 2 could translate to something like: a = a.__assign__(2) with the default behaviour of __assign__ simply being: def __assign__(rhs) return rhs This gives you: - runtime checking for typos (you can't accidentally declare a new variable with := when you really meant to assign to an existing one) - if/when control flow analysis is added to the AST compiler, it will be picked up as an error at compile time along with the other augmented assignments - the object being assigned to can validate/modify its replacement (e.g. automatically wrapping it in a weakref proxy, or checking that it has the correct type) Cheers, Nick. -- Nick Coghlan | ncoghlan@gmail.com | Brisbane, Australia --------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.boredomandlaziness.org