Perl is worse! (was: Python is Wierd!)

[Ben Wolfson]

On Fri, 28 Jul 2000 07:57:12 GMT, grey at despair.rpglink.com (Steve Lamb)
wrote:

>
>>No, it took a sequence containing a single element and turned it into a list
>>containing a single element.  list() only works on sequences.  'a' is a
>>sequence of length 1.
>
>    That is what I said.  It took a single element and made it a list with a
>single element.

No.

The single element is the string "a".  It took the *sequence* "a" and made
it a list.

>>> string = "a"
>>> result = []
>>> for character in string:
	result.append(character)

>>> result
['a']

That works because "a" is a single-element sequence.  Ditto ['a'] and
('a',).

If list() really took a single element and returned a list with that
element, as I've said previously, the result of list( ('a',) ) would be
[('a',)].

-- 
Barnabas T. Rumjuggler

Further-more, I have long since put the finishing touches on my own
official obituary, a 350-page tale of heart-rending loss which details,
among other things: my meteoric rise from Onion stringer to editor to
publisher; my assassination at the hands of lady-actress Ethel Barrymore's
jealous suitors; the thousand days of mourning which followed my death,
during which a cold rain fell constantly, no bird sang, and children were
born antlered and hooved; ...
 -- T. Herman Zweibel