role of semilcolon

[Andy Dustman]

On 12 Apr 1999, Reuben Sumner wrote:

> In the python interpreter doing 'a=1;b=2;b=3' does what I would
> expect, three seperate assignments.  However ; doesn't seem to appear
> in the language reference except in the list of delimeters.  Is the
> above example formally valid python?

Semicolon is a statement separator. So is the end of line unless you have
open parentheses, brackets, braces, or triple-quotes. So:

	a=1;b=2;b=3

is the same as:

	a=1
	b=2
	b=3

But a Pythonism you may want to adapt is:

	a,b,c = 1,2,3

In practice, semicolon is rarely used in Python, since the end of line
separates statements just as well with one less byte (none vs. one :), and
multiple assignments can be done as above.

-- 
andy dustman  | programmer/analyst |  comstar communications corporation
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