Pythonification of the asterisk-based collection packing/unpacking syntax

Evan Driscoll edriscoll at wisc.edu
Sun Dec 18 14:56:17 EST 2011


On 12/18/2011 1:31, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
> And rebutted. Modesty[1] prevents me from quoting myself, but here are 
> some links to searches:
>
> http://duckduckgo.com/?q=python+asterisk
> http://duckduckgo.com/?q=python+*
OK, so if you search using the right search engine, you *might* get a
link to the Python docs. (As I pointed out in a reply to myself before,
you *do* get relevant hits with my Google searches as well, but
virtually nothing to the relevant Python documentation.)

My thinking is borne out; I asked a friend who didn't know what it did
to find out, and he went to Google with the search "python 'starred
argument'", which he said led to moderately helpful results, but again
none from the actual Python docs.

> My normal first place to look for something is Wikipedia. Enjoy it before 
> SOPA kills it.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asterisk#Programming_languages
I might think to look at the Wikipedia article for *Python* (which, by
the way, doesn't help); looking at the wikipedia page for *asterisk*
wouldn't even enter my mind.


> Your search looks overly complicated to me.
>
> I'm not an expert on Google's syntax, but if you search for "python, 
> optionally with function", isn't that the same as just searching for 
> "python" since it will return hits either with or without "function"?
Chris Angelico's interpretation is correct: I did four searches, "python
function star", "python function asterisk", "python star", and "python
asterisk".

Evan


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