Scope troubles with a swap function

[Matthew D. Wood]

Hans Nowak wrote:

>> ===== Original Message From "Matthew D. Wood" <woodm at equire.com> =====
>> Ok, I've been banging my head against this for a sufficiently long time
>> that I feel justified in presenting this personal challenge to the list.
>> 
>> How do you make a swap function?
> 
> 
> You don't need to. :)  Use:
> 
>   a, b = b, a

That makes me so mad that I didn't think of that.  Great suggestion.  (I 
feel really dumb...)

> 
>> How do you make a function or a callable object instance that will do
>> what the following code intends to do:
>> 
>>   def swap (heaven, hell) :
>>           purgatory = heaven
>>           heaven = hell
>>           hell = purgatory
> 
> 
> Python's internal workings are very different from languages like C and 
> Pascal. A Python "variable" is not a location in memory that you can fill with 
> arbitrary data. This Pascal code:
> 
>   X := 3;
>   X := 42;
> 
> changes the value of X, which resides at a certain location in memory. But the 
> equivalent Python code
> 
>   x = 3
>   x = 42
> 
> does not do exactly the same; rather, it binds the name 'x' to the value 3, 
> then rebinds that name to the value 42. Other people explain this better than 
> me; see
> 
>   http://w1.132.telia.com/~u13212494/guides/python-objects.htm
> 
> HTH,
> 
> --Hans Nowak
> 
> 
Yeah, from what I have found, the best way to think about things is that 
everything is a reference.  However, you can't affect the value of a 
passed parameter.  You can however, effect the contents of that 
reference.  (You can't point to a different list, but you can screw with 
the contents of the current list.)  I just couldn't figure out how to 
get around that problem.


But thanks to you, I can.  I love this list!

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