copying a list

[Alex Martelli]

"Gert-Jan Hovinga" <lance_99_99 at yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:39904406.9DCD282 at yahoo.com...
> is there an easy way to get a copy of a list instead of a reference?

Yes:
    import copy
    a=[1,2]
    b.append(copy.copy(a))
    a.pop()
    print b

will print [[1,2]] as you desire.  Also see copy.deepcopy for
harder but similar tasks:-).

For the specific case of a list,
    b.append(a[:])
also works fine.  But copy.copy is more general.

Alex