zip asterisk syntax

[Christopher T King]

garett wrote:

> Hello, I have been reading text processing in python and in the appendix
> the author describes:
> >>> sides = [(3, 4), (7, 11), (35, 8)]
> >>> zip(*zip(*sides))
> 
> what is this asterisk-list syntax called? Any suggestions for finding more
> information about it? Thanks. -Garett

It's called the "extended function call" syntax.  Basically what it does
is take the items of a list and use them as arguments to a function.  
Let's take the example above:

>>> sides = [(3, 4), (7, 11), (35, 8)]
>>> zip(*zip(*sides))

is the same as:

>>> zip(*zip((3,4),(7,11),(35,8)))

zip() mangles its arguments in such a way that the above call is 
equivalent to this:

>>> zip(*[(3,7,35),(4,11,8)])

which is the same as:

>>> zip((3,7,35),(4,11,8))

which evaluates to [(3,4),(7,11),(35,8)].

Back on topic, the dictionary equivalent of * is **; that is, ** takes the
key-value pairs from a dictionary and uses them as arguments to a
function.  * and ** must appear after other arguments to the function, and
you may only have at most one each of * and **.

There's another context other than function calls in which * and ** can be 
used, and that's function definitions:

>> def(a,b=5,*c,**d): pass

will pack any extra arguments (beyond a and b) into list c and dictionary 
d.

For (very) detailed information, see http://docs.python.org/ref/calls.html 
and http://docs.python.org/ref/function.html.