[Tutor] list of dict question

[Dave Angel]

  On 2:59 PM, Alan Gauld wrote:
>
> "Francesco Loffredo" <fal at libero.it> wrote
>
>> did, Roelof's code would work perfectly, and you could store in a list
>> all the subsequent changes of a dictionary without calling them with
>> different names.
>
> You don;'t need dfifferent names. Provided the name creates a
> new object inside the loop you can reuse the same name.
> Roeloff's problem was that he only created one object, outside
> his loop.
>
> lst = []
> for n in range(3):
>     obj = {}
>     obj[n] = str(n)
>     lst.append(obj)
>
> Creats a list of 3 distinct dictionaries but only uses one name - obj.
>
>> I understand that if .append() stored a copy of the dict in the list,
>> you will end up with lots of copies and a huge amount of memory used by
>> your list, but that's exactly what will happen if you make those copies
>> yourself. But you wouldn't have to devise a way to generate a new name
>> for the dictionary every time you need to update it.
>
> Python uses references throughout, what you are suggesting would
> be a change to the normal way that Python uses names.
>
> HTH,
>
Probably more importantly, if a language only implemented copies, you 
couldn't have references without some different syntax.  On the other 
hand, with Python, everything's a reference, and if you want a copy, you 
make one when you need it.  You never do for immutables, and only you 
know when you need it for mutable objects.

DaveA