Stackoverflow question: Is there a built-in identity function in Python?
Ned Batchelder
ned at nedbatchelder.com
Thu Dec 7 15:25:45 EST 2017
On 12/7/17 2:41 PM, Ethan Furman wrote:
> On 12/07/2017 11:23 AM, Ned Batchelder wrote:
>> On 12/7/17 1:28 PM, Ethan Furman wrote:
>
>>> --> identity('spam', 'eggs', 7)
>>> ('spam', 'eggs', 7)
>>
>> I don't see why this last case should hold. Why does the function
>> take more than one argument? And if it does, then
>> why doesn't it work like this?
>>
>> --> identity('spam')
>> ('spam',)
>>
>> (because then it wouldn't be an identity function!) Trying to handle
>> the multi-argument case seems like it adds an
>> unneeded special case to the function.
>
> --> a = 'spam'
> --> a == neds_identity(a)
> False
>
Right, but why does one argument return the argument, but n>1 returns a
tuple of the args?
--Ned.
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