unary star

[Erik Max Francis]

David Eppstein wrote:

> If f(a, b, *(c, d)) is always equivalent to f(a, b, c, d), then why
> isn't (a, b, *(c, d)) always equivalent to (a, b, c, d)?

Because the * and ** syntaxes are specific to function calls; they're
shortcuts for apply.  They are meant as inverses of the function
definition forms:

	def f(x, y, *args, **keywords):
	    ... # args is a tuple, keywords a dictionary

	g(*args, **keywords) # same as apply(g, args, keywords)

In my opinion, the syntax should not generalize at all.

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