Elegant copy-by-value

[Martin Christensen]

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>>>>> "Carl" == Carl Banks <imbosol at vt.edu> writes:
Carl> For the types where it is most useful to do copy-by-value, there
Carl> are built-in ways to do shallow copies.  For example, lists (and
Carl> Numeric arrays) can do this:
Carl>     a = b[:]

Yup, that's one of the ones you pick up rather quickly. :-)

Numeric arrays? What did I miss?

Carl> Dicts have a copy method:
Carl>     a = b.copy()

Ah, I never noticed that one. Thanks, that'll come in handy some day,
I'm sure.

Carl> Class instances don't have such a method by default, seeing that
Carl> they can have more complicated state that might not work with a
Carl> simple copy.  However, it's easy to define a class that does, if
Carl> you need it.  For example, extending the Bunch class from Python
Carl> Cookbook: [...]

Nice example. For some things that might be the way to go.

Martin

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