Haskell like (c:cs) syntax

[Erik Max Francis]

Marco Mariani wrote:
> Ricardo Aráoz ha scritto:
> 
>> L = ['one', 'two', 'three', 'four', 'five']
>>
>> print L[0]    # This would be 'head'
>> print L[1:]   # This would be 'tail'
>>
>> Caution : L[0] and L[1:] are COPIES of the head and tail of the list.
> 
> This might surprise people who see L[1:] = [], since changing a copy is 
> not supposed to change the original.

That's because slicing and assigning is not the same thing as slicing 
alone.  Slicing and assigning mutates the sequence.  Slicing alone 
returns a copy.

 >>> L = ['one', 'two', 'three', 'four', 'five']
 >>> x = L[1:] # grab a slice
 >>> x[:] = [] # mutate it
 >>> x
[]
 >>> L # original list is unchanged
['one', 'two', 'three', 'four', 'five']

-- 
Erik Max Francis && max at alcyone.com && http://www.alcyone.com/max/
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