modifying a list element from a function

[TP]

Hi everybody,

Be a the following list, containing list elements which second field is a
string.

>>> a = [ [4, "toto"], [5, "cou"] ]
>>> a[0][1]="tou"
>>> a
[[4, 'tou'], [5, 'cou']]

OK.

Now, I want:
* to do the same modification on the list "a" within a function
* not to hardcode in this function the position of the string in each
element of a.

At first sight, we think at defining a function like this:

def assign( text_accessor, list_elem, new_textvalue ):

    text_accessor( list_elem ) = new_textvalue

and then doing:

assign( lambda elem: elem[1], a[0], "co" )

But it does not work, we obtain:

    text_accessor( list_elem ) = new_textvalue
SyntaxError: can't assign to function call

In fact, we should work on the address of text_accessor( list_elem ). How to
do that?

Thanks

Julien
-- 
python -c "print ''.join([chr(154 - ord(c)) for c in '*9(9&(18%.\
9&1+,\'Z4(55l4('])"

"When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is
possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is
impossible, he is very probably wrong." (first law of AC Clarke)