Multi-dimensional list initialization

[Demian Brecht]

So, here I was thinking "oh, this is a nice, easy way to initialize a 4D matrix" (running 2.7.3, non-core libs not allowed):

m = [[None] * 4] * 4

The way to get what I was after was:

m = [[None] * 4, [None] * 4, [None] * 4, [None * 4]] 

(Obviously, I could have just hardcoded the initialization, but I'm too lazy to type all that out ;))

The behaviour I encountered seems a little contradictory to me. [None] * 4 creates four distinct elements in a single array while [[None] * 4] * 4 creates one distinct array of four distinct elements, with three references to it:

>>> a = [None] * 4
>>> a[0] = 'a'
>>> a
['a', None, None, None]

>>> m = [[None] * 4] * 4
>>> m[0][0] = 'm'
>>> m
[['m', None, None, None], ['m', None, None, None], ['m', None, None, None], ['m', None, None, None]]

Is this expected behaviour and if so, why? In my mind either result makes sense, but the inconsistency is what throws me off.

Demian Brecht
@demianbrecht
http://demianbrecht.github.com