Reference or Value?

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Sun, 22 Feb 2009 13:37:27 -0300, andrew cooke wrote:

> as far as i understand things, the best model is:
> 
> 1 - everything is an object
> 2 - everything is passed by reference 

Except that is wrong. If it were true, you could do this:

def swap(x, y):
    y, x = x, y

a = 1
b = 2
swap(a, b)
assert a == 2 and b == 1


but you can't, it does not work. Ergo, parameter passing in Python does 
not have the same semantics as languages that use pass-by-reference, such 
as Pascal and Basic. That means that even if you can justify the claim 
"Python is pass-by-reference" by some technical argument (and I don't 
believe you can), it is misleading to make that claim without further 
qualifications.


> 3 - some objects are immutable

All objects are passed the same way, regardless of whether they are 
mutable or immutable.


> 4 - some (immutable?) objects are cached/reused by the system

That's irrelevant. Caching affects the creation of new objects, but has 
no effect on argument passing.



-- 
Steven