[ George Sakkis ] First of all, thanks to everyone who replied.
[ ... ] > I don't know why you might want to distinguish between the two in > practice (the unique object idea mentioned in other posts should > handle most uses cases), but if you insist, here's one way to do it: There is no actual code situation where it happens. I was simply intrigued by the problem and could not find an answer. Since {}.pop behaves this way, I checked the C code. Apparently, it *is* quite easy from C, since PyArg_UnpackTuple and clever initial values (NULL vs. Py_None) make all the difference. The inspect-suggestion is, unfortunately, a bit more difficult to comprehend than I initially hoped for :) Thanks for all the suggestions [ ... ] ivr -- "...but it's HDTV -- it's got a better resolution than the real world." -- Fry, "When aliens attack" -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list