semantics of the |= operator

[Diez B. Roggisch]

akva wrote:

> Hi All,
> 
> what's the exact semantics of the |= operator in python?
> It seems that a |= d is not always equivalent to a = a | d
> 
> For example let's consider the following code:
> 
> def foo(s):
>    s = s | set([10])
> 
> def bar(s):
>    s |= set([10])
> 
> s = set([1,2])
> 
> foo(s)
> print s # prints set([1, 2])
> 
> bar(s)
> print s # prints set([1, 2, 10])
> 
> So it appears that inside bar function the |= operator modifies the
> value of s in place rather than creates a new value.

Yes. That's the exact purpose of the in-place operators when they deal with
mutable objects. What else did you expect? 

Now of course this behaves different:

def foo(x):
   x += 1

y = 100
foo(y)
print y

will result in y still being 100, as the value 101 that is bound to x inside
foo is *not* re-bound to the name y in the outer scope. This is because
numbers (and strings and tuples) are immutables, and thus the operation
won't modify the 100 in place to become 101, instead return a new object.

Diez