Thanks for your help. That makes a lot more sense. Not to ask too many stupid questions, but why does the L2 assignment in the if-block create a new L variable? Shouldn't the scope from the function definition dominate the inner scope of the if-block?
Thanks, Josh > Josh, > > If you print the id() of your L inside your f2(), you will notice something.. > In short, the default value stays the same; what you modified was another > copy of []. Hope it helps. > > def f2(a, L=[]): > print "id(L) = ", id(L) > if L==[]: > L=[] > print "id(L2) =", id(L) > L.append(a) > return L > > >>> print f2(1) > id(L)= 11788336 > id(L2)= 12047184 > [1] > > Kenny > > _______________________________________________ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
