Why does passing tuple as arg WITHOUT scattering work?
Ethan Furman
ethan at stoneleaf.us
Tue Oct 20 19:00:33 EDT 2009
MRAB wrote:
> Alf P. Steinbach wrote:
>
>> Hi all.
>>
>> I'm just learning Python from scratch, on my own. Apologies if this
>> question is too newbie... Or perhaps answered in some FAQ (where?).
>>
>> Here's my original code for simple starter program, using the
>> ActivePython implementation in Windows XP Prof, Python version is 2.6:
>>
>>
>> <code>
>> import Tkinter
>>
>> window = Tkinter.Tk()
>> window.title( "A fixed size ellipse..." )
>> window.geometry( "350x200" ) # Client area size, not window
>> size.
>> window.resizable( width = 0, height = 0 )
>>
>> canvas = Tkinter.Canvas( window, bg = "white" )
>> bbox = 2, 2, 347, 197 # Pixel coors left, top,
>> right, bottom
>> canvas.create_oval( bbox, fill = "PeachPuff" )
>> canvas.pack() # Fill the entire client area,
>> please.
>>
>> window.mainloop() # Process events until window
>> is closed.
>> </code>
>>
>>
>> It worked nicely, and I thought this code was fairly perfect until I
>> started studying the language reference.
>>
>> It seems that formally correct code should apply the scatter operator
>> to the tuple, like this:
>>
>>
>> canvas.create_oval( *bbox, fill = "PeachPuff" )
>>
>>
>> And this /also/ works nicely!
>>
>> I think it's this latter that is correct, and that the former just
>> worked by accident, due to e.g. the way that some C function parses
>> arguments or such?
>>
>> But I'm unable to figure it out, so, what's correct (both? one?), and
>> assuming it's the latter that's correct, would the first version still
>> work in practice regardless of Python / Tkinter implementation?
>>
> I've looked at the source in Tkinter.py. The positional arguments are
> collected and then flattened into a tuple (tuples and lists are
> 'scattered').
Huh. I would have said 'gathered'. Must be my FoxPro days sneaking up
on me. *Shudder*
~Ethan~
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