no pass-values calling?

[Chris]

On Jan 16, 7:59 am, "J. Peng" <peng.... at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Jan 16, 2008 1:45 PM, Dennis Lee Bieber <wlfr... at ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>
> > On Wed, 16 Jan 2008 11:09:09 +0800, "J. Peng" <peng.... at gmail.com>
>
> > alist = []
> > anint = 2
> > astr = "Touch me"
>
> > dummy(alist, anint, astr)
>
> >         "dummy" can only modify the contents of the first argument -- the
> > integer and string can not be mutated.
>
> Hi,
>
> How to modify the array passed to the function? I tried something like this:
>
> >>> a
> [1, 2, 3]
> >>> def mytest(x):
>
> ...   x=[4,5,6]
> ...>>> mytest(a)
> >>> a
>
> [1, 2, 3]
>
> As you see, a was not modified.
> Thanks!

'a' was not modified because you locally assigned a new object with
'x=[4,5,6]'.  If you want the new list you created you will have to
return it.  You can see how you modify it if you were to use
'x.append()' or 'x.extend()' for eg.