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[Daniel Berlin]

On Sun, 9 Apr 2000 poupaerte at my-deja.com wrote:

> Hi
> 
> > def sortedby(list,*indices):
> 
> I didn't know Python worked with pointers, or else what does *indices
> mean? The fine manuals do not explain the *var construct ...

It's not a pointer, it's a tuple of the rest of the arguments passed in.
def test(a,*b):
	print "a",a,"b",b

>>> test(5,6,7,8,9,10,11)
a 5 b (6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11)


> 
> >    nlist = map( lambda x,indices=indices:
> 
> The expression "indices=indices" seems absolutely strange to me. I
> don't have a clue of what it could be doing, except for being true at
> all times.
> 
i missed the rest of the message, so i can't tell without the rest of the
map command.

> Is there some kind of lengthier tutorial on the lambda construct; it
> seems quite an advanced construct not easily to be found elsewhere in
> other programming languages, a bit like regexes ...
I want to say lambda originated in LISP, but i could be wrng.
It's used extensively in lisp and scheme.

> 
> Greetings
> Erik
>