Dear Steve, Thank you for your thoughts.
To be precise, the sequence of letters "*(1,2)" is not actually a "starred expression" in the sense of the Python Language, but e.g., "*(1,2), " is. (A comma is trailing.) Please check the definitions here: https://docs.python.org/3/reference/expressions.html#expression-lists For instance, "(*(1,2) )" raises SyntaxError. Now, is "1,2," more boxed up than "*(1,2)," is? The *current* rule surely says the former is a tuple at some places and the latter is not, but otherwise, I don't see any parenthesis nor bracket around "1,2,". May more parentheses than brackets visible there? I see commas in both, so that's not the difference. Is there no way "*(1,2)," could equally be boxed up at exactly the same places where "1,2," can? Importantly, what problem may be caused by this in practice, or from what problem does SyntaxError currently raised there save us? For instance, if someone writes "s[*(1,2),]" in fact wanting "s[ [*(1,2),] ]" but forgets to box up "*(1,2),", then the same thing can happen for "s[ [1,2,] ]" (i.e., it can be mistyped as "s[1,2,]" but without SyntaxError this time). It would at least be consistent if we got SyntaxError in both cases (namely, the syntax allowed only a single Python expression here), but if we don't want SyntaxError in the latter case, how may we want it in the former case? By the way, please note I wish "*(1,2)," to be treated like "1,2," only where the current syntax expects an expression list. Elsewhere, I don't mind it if starred expressions remain treated as unboxed or whatever. Best regards, Takuo _______________________________________________ Python-ideas mailing list -- python-ideas@python.org To unsubscribe send an email to python-ideas-le...@python.org https://mail.python.org/mailman3/lists/python-ideas.python.org/ Message archived at https://mail.python.org/archives/list/python-ideas@python.org/message/RKTLNFTKVRUPVEUIINGBO72EENX4MYH3/ Code of Conduct: http://python.org/psf/codeofconduct/
