Python "why" questions

[Gregory Ewing]

Roald de Vries wrote:
> On Aug 15, 2010, at 1:00 PM, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
> 
>> Which somewhat defeats the point of trying to make them  
>> look the
>> same, don’t you think?
> 
> How are they not the same?

One way to see that they're not *exactly* the same is
the fact that

   sizeof("python rocks")

is 13, not sizeof(char *). Arrays exist as a distinct
concept in the type system.

What is true is that when you use the name of an array in
an expression, it evaluates to a pointer to its first
element. And array indexing is defined in terms of what
happens to the resulting pointer, rather than being done
directly on the array itself.

-- 
Greg