function parameter scope python 2.5.2

[J Kenneth King]

I recently encountered some interesting behaviour that looks like a bug
to me, but I can't find the appropriate reference to any specifications
to clarify whether it is a bug.

Here's the example code to demonstrate the issue:

class SomeObject(object):

    def __init__(self):
        self.words = ['one', 'two', 'three', 'four', 'five']

    def main(self):
        recursive_func(self.words)
        print self.words

def recursive_func(words):
    if len(words) > 0:
        word = words.pop()
        print "Popped: %s" % word
        recursive_func(words)
    else:
        print "Done"

if __name__ == '__main__':
    weird_obj = SomeObject()
    weird_obj.main()


The output is:

Popped: five
Popped: four
Popped: three
Popped: two
Popped: one
Done
[]

Of course I expected that recursive_func() would receive a copy of
weird_obj.words but it appears to happily modify the object.

Of course a work around is to explicitly create a copy of the object
property befor passing it to recursive_func, but if it's used more than
once inside various parts of the class that could get messy.

Any thoughts? Am I crazy and this is supposed to be the way python works?