Empty list as default parameter

[Alex Panayotopoulos]

On Fri, 21 Nov 2003, anton muhin wrote:
> Alex Panayotopoulos wrote:
>
> > Was there any reason that this sort of behaviour was not implemented?
> 
> It was discussed several times (search for it, if you're interested),

I have done so. It seems to be one of the most popular FAQs...  8^)

As I see it, this is not just a 'wart'; it's a major pitfall that seems
entirely out of place in python; everything up til now has made sense.[0]

The argument that this behaviour is useful for counters and such may have 
been true in the past, but this was only ever a pseudo-generator hack. Now 
we have real generators I don't see when you'd ever want to write 
"foo(x=[])".

If it were up to me, I'd have def throw a warning wherever it sees a
square bracket, curly bracket or call to an __init__... But then I'm not a
python developer...  8^P  8^)

Okay, I've whinged enough, I think. No more posts from me on this subject.  
8^)

> if you wish a one-linear, somehting like this might work:
> self.myList = myList or []

Thanks. That's sneaky without being confusing... I like.

-- 
<<<Alexspudros Potatopoulos>>>
Defender of Spudkind

[0] Though yes, I am happy that int division is to be changed.