Can Python function return multiple data?

[Michael Torrie]

On 06/04/2015 11:26 AM, random832 at fastmail.us wrote:
> Of course, in CPython, the type of an object reference is PyObject *.
> Which isn't invisible, unknown, or unknowable, either.
> 
> If the value really were 23, the "is vs ==" problem wouldn't exist.

Surely two objects can hold the same value, or represent the same value
(number), without *having* to be the same object.  I don't see why
people would assume, let alone demand that different objects
representing the same value be the same actual object.  Why should it
even matter? Just relax and write code.  I enjoy the forays into the the
technical, and even the pedantic, but this is getting a bit silly.


> x = 500
> y = x+1
> z = y-1
> 
> x and z (probably) point to two different objects.

Sure.  Python does not require objects representing numeric values to be
singletons.  And why worry anyway?  The "is" operator is to be used in
specific cases where identity is important (it's not important in the
case of numbers).

I'm sure an interpreter implementation could always guarantee that any
object representing an integer value is always the same one, if a person
thought it would make things faster.  And in fact cpython does inter
small values.  But given that the interpreter is computing an actual,
binary value under the hood during calculations, I can understand why
it's just as easy to wrap up the answer in an object and hand it back to
you, rather than try to guarantee a reference to an existing object of
the same value.