Newbie-list-problem: how to supress constraining 2 lists - a=b ?

[JohnJacob]

"HugOnline" <thehugonline at yahoo.de> wrote in message
news:813cfe33.0211080235.5d4b8c9e at posting.google.com...
> Hello,
>
> I'm a Python - newbie and I can not solve the following problem:
>
> >>>a=[8,7,6,5,4]   # set this list to a
> >>>b=a             # I' want to have two same lists: a and b
> >>>b.sort()        # b should be sorted
> >>>print b         # it's ok
> [4,5,6,7,8]
> >>>print a
> [4,5,6,7,8]        # but a is sorted, too !!!
>
> How can I suppress the constraining of a and b? I want to have in the
> result two list - a unsorted and b sorted. Is there a switch to supress
> it?
>
> Regards  HugOnline
>

b = a[:]