Why not a, b += i, j? (augmented assignment via tuple unpacking)

[Michael Hudson]

Steven Rumbalski <srumbalski at prodigy.net> writes:

> In python I can write:
> 
> a, b = i, j
> 
> but the following is not legal:
> 
> a, b += i, j
> 
> Is there a reason that allowing this would be bad?

Well, as others have said it's not totally clear what it does (though
I thought it pretty obvious what you meant).

> Why does Python forbid this?

It would probably be a swine to implement, for one thing...  I did the
grammar hacks for augmented assignment back in 2000 and allowing this
didn't even occur to me.

Cheers,
M.

-- 
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