[Python-Dev] can't assign to function call

[Xavier Morel]

On 2013-03-18, at 15:23 , Chris Angelico wrote:

> On Tue, Mar 19, 2013 at 12:50 AM, Neal Becker <ndbecker2 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> def F(x):
>>    return x
>> 
>> x = 2
>> F(x) = 3
>> 
>>    F(x) = 3
>> SyntaxError: can't assign to function call
>> 
>> Do we really need this restriction?  There do exist other languages without it.
> 
> The languages that permit you to assign to a function call all have
> some notion of a reference type.

Alternatively they're functional language defining "match cases" e.g. in
Haskell a function is defined as

    foo a b c = someOperation a b c

which is functionally equivalent to Python's

    def foo(a, b, c):
        return someOperation(a, b, c)