On Fri, Jul 12, 2013 at 12:51 PM, Corey Sarsfield
Actually, what I wanted was to be able to reference the variable being assigned to
I think I understand what you're trying to say, but it's not something that really exists in Python. With a classic assignment statement: foo = (expression) the previous value of foo is abandoned and a new value bound to that name. What you want is to reference that previous value (presumably with the same potential for NameError or UnboundLocalError if there is none). Effectively, elevate the magic of "foo = 5; foo += 10" to full feature. There HAVE been times when I've wanted something like this, but they're extremely rare. Also, the nature of Python makes the benefit somewhat less than it might be in, say, C++; it's not going to be possible to do the lookups once and keep track of the memory location, because Python simply doesn't work that way. Whether __setitem__ can take advantage of a previous __getitem__ is entirely up to the class. ChrisA