List replication operator

[Chris Angelico]

On Sat, May 26, 2018 at 1:46 AM, Steven D'Aprano
<steve+comp.lang.python at pearwood.info> wrote:
> On Fri, 25 May 2018 18:06:00 +1000, Chris Angelico wrote:
>
>> Downside: while it's all very well to say that this is equivalent to
>> copy.deepcopy(), that would imply replicating copy.deepcopy's semantics
>> in the core list type (unless it's actually literally defined as
>> importing a module and calling a function), and deepcopy is a
>> complicated function.
>
> Betcha it's not as complicated as the import statement, and the bulk of
> that is now implemented as pure Python :-)
>
> But you make a good point: deep copying is not a trivial operation.
>

Heh, true. But "a good bit" is not quite the same as if you had (don't
shoot me, this is just hypothetical) "spam".import() as a way to
obtain the same module you'd get from 'import spam'. To be a
method/operator on a core data type, it basically *all* has to be
implemented in C, otherwise there are going to be awkwardnesses.

I don't think that kills your idea, but it does mean it's a nontrivial
enhancement to the list type.

ChrisA