What does *x mean?

[Duncan Booth]

gat at jpl.nasa.gov (Erann Gat) wrote in news:gat-0811011133410001 at jansma-
mac.jpl.nasa.gov:

> I've heard people mention "the new *x syntax".  Does Python have a prefix
> * operator now?  What does it do?  (It's not mentioned in the online
> language reference at python.org.)  Email replies preferred.  Thanks!
> 
There seems to be a hole in the documentation. The language reference 5.3.4 
has the syntax for function calls and does not cover the *x and **y syntax. 
It is mentioned in the documentation for apply (library reference 2.1), but 
not really explained.


-- 
Duncan Booth                                             duncan at rcp.co.uk
int month(char *p){return(124864/((p[0]+p[1]-p[2]&0x1f)+1)%12)["\5\x8\3"
"\6\7\xb\1\x9\xa\2\0\4"];} // Who said my code was obscure?