Object copies...

[DP]

Hi all,

Please help me clear my confusion here. I'm running the script below.
I'm expecting to get a listing of my original object and the new
object created by 'getdates'. Instead I'm seeing the function
'getdates' changing my original object, 'mydates'.

Q1: Why does 'getdates' not create a copy of 'mydates' instead of
operating on the original object? I.e., how do I change this behavior?

Q2: [Unrelated] I'm trying to parse these dates into d, m, y and can't
think of any other way but on a per-case basis. Any suggestions on a
better aproach? I tried -
try:
	d. m, y = Dates[i].split("/")
except: ValueError ...<etc>
but there are too many exceptions to the rule, which brings me back to
a case-based algorithm.

Thanks in advance.
Dinil.


# -----------------------------------------------------------------------
def indexedList(list):
	return map(None, range(len(list)), list)

def getdate(Dates):
	for i, j in indexedList(Dates):
		j = j.replace(".", "/")
		j = j.replace("-", "/")
		j = j.replace(" ", "/")
		Dates[i] = j
	return Dates


if __name__ == "__main__":
	mydates = ['31082002','31.08.2002','31.08.2002',
			 '30092002','30.09.2002','30.09.2002',
			 '309 2'   ,'30-09-2002','30-09-2002',
			 '318 2'   ,'31.08.2002','31/08/2002',
			 '30092002','30-09-2002','30-09-2002',
			 '31082002','31-08-2002','31-08-2002',
			 '309 2002','30.09.2002','30.09.2002',
			 '318 2002','31.08.2002','31.08.2002',
			 '30092002','30.09.2004',''			,
			 '31082002','31.08.02'  ,''			,
			 '30092002','30.09.02'  ,'30.09.2002',
			 '31082002','31.08.02'  ,'31.08.2002',
			 '30092002','30.09.2002','30/9/2002'	,
			 '31082002','31/8/2002' ,'31/8/2002'	,
			 '31082002','31082002'  ,''			,
			 '30092002','30092002'  ,'30092002'	,
			 '31082002','31.08.2002','31.08.2002'
			 ]
	newdates = getdate(mydates)
	print newdates
	print mydates