Multiple assignment?

[Andy Jewell]

On Monday 21 Apr 2003 10:55 am, Mehta, Anish wrote:
> Can someone tell me the what is being done here in this line of code.
>
> dir, file = os.path.split(input)
>
> Waiting for reply
>
> Thanks
>
> Anish MEHTA


1) Check the docs at python.org.

2) os.path.split cuts a file path into two parts, the directory bit, and the 
file name bit, and returns it as a tuple.  

3) Example of tuples in use:

>>> def swap(a,b):   # This is NOT the best way to do this - example only
	return b,a

>>> swap(1,2)
(2, 1)
>>> x=1
>>> y=2
>>> x,y=swap(x,y)
>>> x
2
>>> y
1

4) The final answer is that the statement:

    dir, file = os.path.split(input)

'unpacks' the tuple returned by os.path.split() into the variables dir and 
file.

5) 'file' is a bad choice for a variable name, as it is also a builtin class 
for opening files (depending on your version of python).