Somthing strange with list as default argument

[Sam Holden]

On Wed, 22 Sep 2004 10:19:45 +0200,
	Julien Sagnard <julien.sagnard.withoutthis at free.fr> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> When passing a list as default argument for a function, only one list is 
> created for all calls.
> exemple:
> >>> def f(a=[]):
> ...     a.append("x")
> ...     print a
> ...
> >>> f()
> ['x']
> >>> f()
> ['x', 'x']
> >>> f()
> ['x', 'x', 'x']
> >>> f()
> ['x', 'x', 'x', 'x']
> >>>
>
> I'm not found any reference of this. Is it a bug ?

http://docs.python.org/tut/node6.html#SECTION006710000000000000000
(see the bold "important warning")

http://docs.python.org/ref/function.html
(see the paragraph with the bold text)

http://www.python.org/doc/faq/general.html
#why-are-default-values-shared-between-objects
(see the whole of 1.4.21 - link should be all one string with no new line...)

The tutorial, the reference docs, and the FAQ all mention this. There
isn't anywhere left to reference it.

-- 
Sam Holden