On 6/7/06, Raymond Hettinger <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > for users, it's actually quite simple to figure out what's in the _ > > variable: it's the most recently *printed* result. if you cannot see > > it, it's not in there. > > Of course, there's a pattern to it. The question is whether it is the *right* > behavior. Would the underscore assignment be more useful and intuitive > if it always contained the immediately preceding result, even if it was None? > In some cases (such as the regexp example), None is a valid and useful > possible result of a computation and you may want to access that result with > _.
If you're using _ in an interactive environment, it's usually because you don't want to re-type the value of the expression. If the value is None, it isn't hard to type. > BTW, there is a trivial exception to the "most recently printed result" rule. > > >>> 13 > 13 > >>> _ = None > >>> _ # _ is no longer the most recently printed result If you want to assign to _, the results are your own fault. Jeremy _______________________________________________ Python-Dev mailing list Python-Dev@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-dev Unsubscribe: http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/python-dev/archive%40mail-archive.com
