Abstract

20 Apr 2018 · will

Working on the reference implementation for PEP 572 is turning out to
be a massive time sink, both on my personal schedule and on the PEP's
discussion. I can't just hold off all discussion on a topic until I
figure out whether something is possible or not, because that could
take me several days, even a week or more. And considering the massive
backlash against the proposal, it seems like a poor use of my time to
try to prove that something's impossible, find that I don't know
enough about grammar editing to be able to say anything more than
"well, I couldn't do it, but someone else might be able to", and then
try to resume the discussion with no more certainty than we had
before.
So here's the PEP again, simplified. I'm fairly sure it's just going
to be another on a growing list of rejected PEPs to my name, and I'm
done with trying to argue some of these points. Either the rules get
simplified, or they don't. Trying to simplify the rules and maintain
perfect backward compatibility is just making the rules even more
complicated.
PEP 572, if accepted, will change the behaviour of certain
constructs inside comprehensions, mainly due to interactions with
class scope that make no sense unless you know how they're implemented
internally. The official tutorial pretends that comprehensions are
"equivalent to" longhand:
https://docs.python.org/3/tutorial/datastructures.html?highlight=equivalent#...
https://docs.python.org/3/howto/functional.html?highlight=equivalent#generat...
and this is an inaccuracy for the sake of simplicity. PEP 572 will
make this far more accurate; the only difference is that the
comprehension is inside a function. Current semantics are far more
bizarre than that.
Do you want absolutely 100% backward compatibility? Then reject this
PEP. Or better still, keep using Python 3.7, and don't upgrade to 3.8,
in case something breaks. Do you want list comprehensions that make
better sense? Then accept that some code will need to change, if it
tried to use the same name in multiple scopes, or tried to use ancient
Python 2 semantics with a yield expression in the outermost iterable.
I'm pretty much ready for pronouncement.
https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0572/
ChrisA
PEP: 572
Title: Assignment Expressions
Author: Chris Angelico rosuav@gmail.com
Status: Draft
Type: Standards Track
Content-Type: text/x-rst
Created: 28-Feb-2018
Python-Version: 3.8
Post-History: 28-Feb-2018, 02-Mar-2018, 23-Mar-2018, 04-Apr-2018, 17-Apr-2018
Abstract
This is a proposal for creating a way to assign to variables within an
expression. Additionally, the precise scope of comprehensions is adjusted, to
maintain consistency and follow expectations.
Rationale
Naming the result of an expression is an important part of programming,
allowing a descriptive name to be used in place of a longer expression,
and permitting reuse.  Currently, this feature is available only in
statement form, making it unavailable in list comprehensions and other
expression contexts.  Merely introducing a way to assign as an expression
would create bizarre edge cases around comprehensions, though, and to avoid
the worst of the confusions, we change the definition of comprehensions,
causing some edge cases to be interpreted differently, but maintaining the
existing behaviour in the majority of situations.
Syntax and semantics
In any context where arbitrary Python expressions can be used, a named
expression can appear. This is of the form target := expr where
expr is any valid Python expression, and target is any valid
assignment target.
The value of such a named expression is the same as the incorporated
expression, with the additional side-effect that the target is assigned
that value::
# Handle a matched regex
if (match := pattern.search(data)) is not None:
    ...

# A more explicit alternative to the 2-arg form of iter() invocation
while (value := read_next_item()) is not None:
    ...

# Share a subexpression between a comprehension filter clause and its output
filtered_data = [y for x in data if (y := f(x)) is not None]

Differences from regular assignment statements
Most importantly, since := is an expression, it can be used in contexts
where statements are illegal, including lambda functions and comprehensions.
An assignment statement can assign to multiple targets, left-to-right::
x = y = z = 0

The equivalent assignment expression is parsed as separate binary operators,
and is therefore processed right-to-left, as if it were spelled thus::
assert 0 == (x := (y := (z := 0)))

Augmented assignment is not supported in expression form::
>>> x +:= 1
  File "<stdin>", line 1
    x +:= 1
        ^
SyntaxError: invalid syntax

Otherwise, the semantics of assignment are identical in statement and
expression forms.
Alterations to comprehensions
The current behaviour of list/set/dict comprehensions and generator
expressions has some edge cases that would behave strangely if an assignment
expression were to be used. Therefore the proposed semantics are changed,
removing the current edge cases, and instead altering their behaviour only
in a class scope.
As of Python 3.7, the outermost iterable of any comprehension is evaluated
in the surrounding context, and then passed as an argument to the implicit
function that evaluates the comprehension.
Under this proposal, the entire body of the comprehension is evaluated in
its implicit function. Names not assigned to within the comprehension are
located in the surrounding scopes, as with normal lookups. As one special
case, a comprehension at class scope will eagerly bind any name which
is already defined in the class scope.
A list comprehension can be unrolled into an equivalent function. With
Python 3.7 semantics::
numbers = [x + y for x in range(3) for y in range(4)]
# Is approximately equivalent to
def <listcomp>(iterator):
    result = []
    for x in iterator:
        for y in range(4):
            result.append(x + y)
    return result
numbers = <listcomp>(iter(range(3)))

Under the new semantics, this would instead be equivalent to::
def <listcomp>():
    result = []
    for x in range(3):
        for y in range(4):
            result.append(x + y)
    return result
numbers = <listcomp>()

When a class scope is involved, a naive transformation into a function would
prevent name lookups (as the function would behave like a method)::
class X:
    names = ["Fred", "Barney", "Joe"]
    prefix = "> "
    prefixed_names = [prefix + name for name in names]

With Python 3.7 semantics, this will evaluate the outermost iterable at class
scope, which will succeed; but it will evaluate everything else in a function::
class X:
    names = ["Fred", "Barney", "Joe"]
    prefix = "> "
    def <listcomp>(iterator):
        result = []
        for name in iterator:
            result.append(prefix + name)
        return result
    prefixed_names = <listcomp>(iter(names))

The name prefix is thus searched for at global scope, ignoring the class
name. Under the proposed semantics, this name will be eagerly bound; and the
same early binding then handles the outermost iterable as well. The list
comprehension is thus approximately equivalent to::
class X:
    names = ["Fred", "Barney", "Joe"]
    prefix = "> "
    def <listcomp>(names=names, prefix=prefix):
        result = []
        for name in names:
            result.append(prefix + name)
        return result
    prefixed_names = <listcomp>()

With list comprehensions, this is unlikely to cause any confusion. With
generator expressions, this has the potential to affect behaviour, as the
eager binding means that the name could be rebound between the creation of
the genexp and the first call to next(). It is, however, more closely
aligned to normal expectations.  The effect is ONLY seen with names that
are looked up from class scope; global names (eg range()) will still
be late-bound as usual.
One consequence of this change is that certain bugs in genexps will not
be detected until the first call to next(), where today they would be
caught upon creation of the generator.
Recommended use-cases
Simplifying list comprehensions
A list comprehension can map and filter efficiently by capturing
the condition::
results = [(x, y, x/y) for x in input_data if (y := f(x)) > 0]

Similarly, a subexpression can be reused within the main expression, by
giving it a name on first use::
stuff = [[y := f(x), x/y] for x in range(5)]

# There are a number of less obvious ways to spell this in current
# versions of Python, such as:

# Inline helper function
stuff = [(lambda y: [y,x/y])(f(x)) for x in range(5)]

# Extra 'for' loop - potentially could be optimized internally
stuff = [[y, x/y] for x in range(5) for y in [f(x)]]

# Using a mutable cache object (various forms possible)
c = {}
stuff = [[c.update(y=f(x)) or c['y'], x/c['y']] for x in range(5)]

In all cases, the name is local to the comprehension; like iteration variables,
it cannot leak out into the surrounding context.
Capturing condition values
Assignment expressions can be used to good effect in the header of
an if or while statement::
# Proposed syntax
while (command := input("> ")) != "quit":
    print("You entered:", command)

# Capturing regular expression match objects
# See, for instance, Lib/pydoc.py, which uses a multiline spelling
# of this effect
if match := re.search(pat, text):
    print("Found:", match.group(0))

# Reading socket data until an empty string is returned
while data := sock.read():
    print("Received data:", data)

# Equivalent in current Python, not caring about function return value
while input("> ") != "quit":
    print("You entered a command.")

# To capture the return value in current Python demands a four-line
# loop header.
while True:
    command = input("> ");
    if command == "quit":
        break
    print("You entered:", command)

Particularly with the while loop, this can remove the need to have an
infinite loop, an assignment, and a condition. It also creates a smooth
parallel between a loop which simply uses a function call as its condition,
and one which uses that as its condition but also uses the actual value.
Rejected alternative proposals
Proposals broadly similar to this one have come up frequently on python-ideas.
Below are a number of alternative syntaxes, some of them specific to
comprehensions, which have been rejected in favour of the one given above.
Alternative spellings
Broadly the same semantics as the current proposal, but spelled differently.

EXPR as NAME::
stuff = [[f(x) as y, x/y] for x in range(5)]

Since EXPR as NAME already has meaning in except and
with
statements (with different semantics), this would create unnecessary
confusion or require special-casing (eg to forbid assignment within the
headers of these statements).

EXPR -> NAME::
stuff = [[f(x) -> y, x/y] for x in range(5)]

This syntax is inspired by languages such as R and Haskell, and some
programmable calculators. (Note that a left-facing arrow y <- f(x) is
not possible in Python, as it would be interpreted as less-than and unary
minus.) This syntax has a slight advantage over 'as' in that it does not
conflict with with and except statements, but otherwise is
equivalent.

Adorning statement-local names with a leading dot::
stuff = [[(f(x) as .y), x/.y] for x in range(5)] # with "as"
stuff = [[(.y := f(x)), x/.y] for x in range(5)] # with ":="

This has the advantage that leaked usage can be readily detected, removing
some forms of syntactic ambiguity.  However, this would be the only place
in Python where a variable's scope is encoded into its name, making
refactoring harder.

Adding a where: to any statement to create local name bindings::
value = x**2 + 2*x where:
    x = spam(1, 4, 7, q)

Execution order is inverted (the indented body is performed first, followed
by the "header").  This requires a new keyword, unless an existing keyword
is repurposed (most likely with:).  See PEP 3150 for prior discussion
on this subject (with the proposed keyword being given:).

TARGET from EXPR::
stuff = [[y from f(x), x/y] for x in range(5)]

This syntax has fewer conflicts than as does (conflicting only with the
raise Exc from Exc notation), but is otherwise comparable to it. Instead
of paralleling with expr as target: (which can be useful but can also be
confusing), this has no parallels, but is evocative.

Special-casing conditional statements
One of the most popular use-cases is if and while statements.
 Instead
of a more general solution, this proposal enhances the syntax of these two
statements to add a means of capturing the compared value::
if re.search(pat, text) as match:
    print("Found:", match.group(0))

This works beautifully if and ONLY if the desired condition is based on the
truthiness of the captured value.  It is thus effective for specific
use-cases (regex matches, socket reads that return '' when done), and
completely useless in more complicated cases (eg where the condition is
f(x) < 0 and you want to capture the value of f(x)).  It also
has
no benefit to list comprehensions.
Advantages: No syntactic ambiguities. Disadvantages: Answers only a fraction
of possible use-cases, even in if/while statements.
Special-casing comprehensions
Another common use-case is comprehensions (list/set/dict, and genexps). As
above, proposals have been made for comprehension-specific solutions.

where, let, or given::
stuff = [(y, x/y) where y = f(x) for x in range(5)]
stuff = [(y, x/y) let y = f(x) for x in range(5)]
stuff = [(y, x/y) given y = f(x) for x in range(5)]

This brings the subexpression to a location in between the 'for' loop and
the expression. It introduces an additional language keyword, which creates
conflicts. Of the three, where reads the most cleanly, but also has the
greatest potential for conflict (eg SQLAlchemy and numpy have where
methods, as does tkinter.dnd.Icon in the standard library).

with NAME = EXPR::
stuff = [(y, x/y) with y = f(x) for x in range(5)]

As above, but reusing the with keyword. Doesn't read too badly, and needs
no additional language keyword. Is restricted to comprehensions, though,
and cannot as easily be transformed into "longhand" for-loop syntax. Has
the C problem that an equals sign in an expression can now create a name
binding, rather than performing a comparison. Would raise the question of
why "with NAME = EXPR:" cannot be used as a statement on its own.

with EXPR as NAME::
stuff = [(y, x/y) with f(x) as y for x in range(5)]

As per option 2, but using as rather than an equals sign. Aligns
syntactically with other uses of as for name binding, but a simple
transformation to for-loop longhand would create drastically different
semantics; the meaning of with inside a comprehension would be
completely different from the meaning as a stand-alone statement, while
retaining identical syntax.

Regardless of the spelling chosen, this introduces a stark difference between
comprehensions and the equivalent unrolled long-hand form of the loop.  It is
no longer possible to unwrap the loop into statement form without reworking
any name bindings.  The only keyword that can be repurposed to this task is
with, thus giving it sneakily different semantics in a comprehension than
in a statement; alternatively, a new keyword is needed, with all the costs
therein.
Lowering operator precedence
There are two logical precedences for the := operator. Either it should
bind as loosely as possible, as does statement-assignment; or it should bind
more tightly than comparison operators. Placing its precedence between the
comparison and arithmetic operators (to be precise: just lower than bitwise
OR) allows most uses inside while and if conditions to be
spelled
without parentheses, as it is most likely that you wish to capture the value
of something, then perform a comparison on it::
pos = -1
while pos := buffer.find(search_term, pos + 1) >= 0:
    ...

Once find() returns -1, the loop terminates. If := binds as loosely as
= does, this would capture the result of the comparison (generally either
True or False), which is less useful.
While this behaviour would be convenient in many situations, it is also harder
to explain than "the := operator behaves just like the assignment statement",
and as such, the precedence for := has been made as close as possible to
that of =.
Migration path
The semantic changes to list/set/dict comprehensions, and more so to generator
expressions, may potentially require migration of code. In many cases, the
changes simply make legal what used to raise an exception, but there are some
edge cases that were previously legal and now are not, and a few corner cases
with altered semantics.
The Outermost Iterable
As of Python 3.7, the outermost iterable in a comprehension is special: it is
evaluated in the surrounding context, instead of inside the comprehension.
Thus it is permitted to contain a yield expression, to use a name also
used elsewhere, and to reference names from class scope. Also, in a genexp,
the outermost iterable is pre-evaluated, but the rest of the code is not
touched until the genexp is first iterated over. Class scope is now handled
more generally (see above), but if other changes require the old behaviour,
the iterable must be explicitly elevated from the comprehension::
# Python 3.7
def f(x):
    return [x for x in x if x]
def g():
    return [x for x in [(yield 1)]]
# With PEP 572
def f(x):
    return [y for y in x if y]
def g():
    sent_item = (yield 1)
    return [x for x in [sent_item]]

This more clearly shows that it is g(), not the comprehension, which is able
to yield values (and is thus a generator function). The entire comprehension
is consistently in a single scope.
The following expressions would, in Python 3.7, raise exceptions immediately.
With the removal of the outermost iterable's special casing, they are now
equivalent to the most obvious longhand form::
gen = (x for x in rage(10)) # NameError
gen = (x for x in 10) # TypeError (not iterable)
gen = (x for x in range(1/0)) # ZeroDivisionError

def <genexp>():
    for x in rage(10):
        yield x
gen = <genexp>() # No exception yet
tng = next(gen) # NameError

Open questions
Importing names into comprehensions
A list comprehension can use and update local names, and they will retain
their values from one iteration to another. It would be convenient to use
this feature to create rolling or self-effecting data streams::
progressive_sums = [total := total + value for value in data]

This will fail with UnboundLocalError due to total not being initalized.
Simply initializing it outside of the comprehension is insufficient - unless
the comprehension is in class scope::
class X:
    total = 0
    progressive_sums = [total := total + value for value in data]

At other scopes, it may be beneficial to have a way to fetch a value from the
surrounding scope. Should this be automatic? Should it be controlled with a
keyword? Hypothetically (and using no new keywords), this could be written::
total = 0
progressive_sums = [total := total + value
    import nonlocal total
    for value in data]

Translated into longhand, this would become::
total = 0
def <listcomp>(total=total):
    result = []
    for value in data:
        result.append(total := total + value)
    return result
progressive_sums = <listcomp>()

ie utilizing the same early-binding technique that is used at class scope.
Frequently Raised Objections
Why not just turn existing assignment into an expression?
C and its derivatives define the = operator as an expression, rather than
a statement as is Python's way.  This allows assignments in more contexts,
including contexts where comparisons are more common.  The syntactic similarity
between if (x == y) and if (x = y) belies their drastically
different
semantics.  Thus this proposal uses := to clarify the distinction.
This could be used to create ugly code!
So can anything else.  This is a tool, and it is up to the programmer to use it
where it makes sense, and not use it where superior constructs can be used.
With assignment expressions, why bother with assignment statements?
The two forms have different flexibilities.  The := operator can be used
inside a larger expression; the = statement can be augmented to
+= and
its friends. The assignment statement is a clear declaration of intent: this
value is to be assigned to this target, and that's it.
Why not use a sublocal scope and prevent namespace pollution?
Previous revisions of this proposal involved sublocal scope (restricted to a
single statement), preventing name leakage and namespace pollution.  While a
definite advantage in a number of situations, this increases complexity in
many others, and the costs are not justified by the benefits. In the interests
of language simplicity, the name bindings created here are exactly equivalent
to any other name bindings, including that usage at class or module scope will
create externally-visible names.  This is no different from for loops or
other constructs, and can be solved the same way: del the name once it is
no longer needed, or prefix it with an underscore.
Names bound within a comprehension are local to that comprehension, even in
the outermost iterable, and can thus be used freely without polluting the
surrounding namespace.
(The author wishes to thank Guido van Rossum and Christoph Groth for their
suggestions to move the proposal in this direction. [2]_)
Style guide recommendations
As this adds another way to spell some of the same effects as can already be
done, it is worth noting a few broad recommendations. These could be included
in PEP 8 and/or other style guides.

If either assignment statements or assignment expressions can be
used, prefer statements; they are a clear declaration of intent.

If using assignment expressions would lead to ambiguity about
execution order, restructure it to use statements instead.

Acknowledgements
The author wishes to thank Guido van Rossum and Nick Coghlan for their
considerable contributions to this proposal, and to members of the
core-mentorship mailing list for assistance with implementation.
References
.. [1] Proof of concept / reference implementation
   (https://github.com/Rosuav/cpython/tree/assignment-expressions)
.. [2] Pivotal post regarding inline assignment semantics
   (https://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-ideas/2018-March/049409.html)
Copyright
This document has been placed in the public domain.
..
   Local Variables:
   mode: indented-text
   indent-tabs-mode: nil
   sentence-end-double-space: t
   fill-column: 70
   coding: utf-8
   End:

PEP 572: Now with 25% less reference implementation!

Abstract

Rationale

Syntax and semantics

Differences from regular assignment statements

Alterations to comprehensions

Recommended use-cases

Simplifying list comprehensions

Capturing condition values

Rejected alternative proposals

Alternative spellings

Special-casing conditional statements

Special-casing comprehensions

Lowering operator precedence

Migration path

The Outermost Iterable

Open questions

Importing names into comprehensions

Frequently Raised Objections

Why not just turn existing assignment into an expression?

This could be used to create ugly code!

With assignment expressions, why bother with assignment statements?

Why not use a sublocal scope and prevent namespace pollution?

Style guide recommendations

Acknowledgements

References

Copyright

Abstract

Rationale

Syntax and semantics

Differences from regular assignment statements

Alterations to comprehensions

Recommended use-cases

Simplifying list comprehensions

Capturing condition values

Rejected alternative proposals

Alternative spellings

Special-casing conditional statements

Special-casing comprehensions

Lowering operator precedence

Migration path

The Outermost Iterable

Open questions

Importing names into comprehensions

Frequently Raised Objections

Why not just turn existing assignment into an expression?

This could be used to create ugly code!

With assignment expressions, why bother with assignment statements?

Why not use a sublocal scope and prevent namespace pollution?

Style guide recommendations

Acknowledgements

References

Copyright

Abstract

Rationale

Syntax and semantics

Differences from regular assignment statements

Alterations to comprehensions

Recommended use-cases

Simplifying list comprehensions

Capturing condition values

Rejected alternative proposals

Alternative spellings

Special-casing conditional statements

Special-casing comprehensions

Lowering operator precedence

Migration path

The Outermost Iterable

Open questions

Importing names into comprehensions

Frequently Raised Objections

Why not just turn existing assignment into an expression?

This could be used to create ugly code!

With assignment expressions, why bother with assignment statements?

Why not use a sublocal scope and prevent namespace pollution?

Style guide recommendations

Acknowledgements

References

Copyright