Help, multidimensional list

[Christopher Koppler]

On Sun, 28 Dec 2003 14:27:41 +0000, Crawley
<crawley.storm at IGetTooMuchSpamAsItIs.com> wrote:

>Im trying to create a list of lists and for some reason its not working:
>
>class Tile:
>    _next = { 'n':None, 'ne':None, 'e':None, 'se':None, 's':None, 
>'sw':None, 'w':None, 'nw':None }
>
>
>def blankGridCanvas( maxx, maxy ):
>    grid = []
>    for y in xrange( 0, maxy ):
>        yline = []
>        for x in xrange( 0, maxx ):
>            t = Tile()
>            if y != 0:
>                t._next[ 'n' ] = grid[ y - 1 ][ x ]
>                t._next[ 'n' ]._next[ 's' ] = t
>                                
>            yline.append( t )
>        grid.append( yline )
>
>    for y in xrange( 0, maxy ):
>        for x in xrange( 0, maxx ):
>            print grid[ x ][ y ], grid[ x ][ y ]._next
>    return grid
>
>now by my reconing this should be a list of lists with each element being 
>an instance of Tile,

You only create a *class* Tile, and provide no way to create
*instances* of it - so much like with static variables in other
languages, you only have one 'instance' here. To be able to create
separate instances, you need a constructor in your class to
instantiate every instance, like so:

class Tile:
    def __init__(self):
        self._next = { 'n':None, 'ne':None, 'e':None, 'se':None,
                       's':None, 'sw':None, 'w':None, 'nw':None }


 and some references being manipulated to point to each 
>other.  But strangly no, its actually a list of lists where each element is 
>the SAME instance of Tile, so I change one, i change them ALL!
>
>Whats going on and how do I solve it?

Any gurus around can certainly much better explain what's going on and
why...

--
Christopher