[Tutor] How to Pass lists by value

[John Fouhy]

On 06/12/05, Hans Dushanthakumar <Hans.Dushanthakumar at navman.com> wrote:
>
> Thanks guys
>
> Yes either of the foll solves the problem:
>
> b = junk(copy.copy(a))
>
>  OR
>
> b = junk(a[:])

One thing you should be aware of --- these will both do a "shallow copy".

Example:

>>> lists = [[], [], [], []]
>>> lists2 = lists[:]
>>> lists.append('foo')
>>> lists, lists2             # This shows that lists and lists2 are different.
([[], [], [], [], 'foo'], [[], [], [], []])
>>> lists[0].append(13)
>>> lists, lists2             # Oops, but lists[0] and lists2[0] are the same!
([[13], [], [], [], 'foo'], [[13], [], [], []])

> Why is there a difference between the way the two lines (x.append("20")  and
> x = "30") are handled within a function?

x = '30' will create a new (local) variable x and give it the value '30'.

x.append('20') will call the .append() method on x.  Calling this
method has the side effect of changing the list x points to.

--
John.