Michael Broe said unto the world upon 17/02/06 03:57 PM:
<snip>
> Second question. Do I really have to write the sort_print() function
> like this:
>
> def sort_print(L):
> L.sort()
> print L
>
> i.e. first perform the operation in-place, then pass the variable? Is
> this the idiomatic way of doing it?
Hi Michael,
others have answered what you asked; I thought I'd try to head off a
potential problem for you.
Perhaps you've seen this already, but since you are wrapping the print
in a function, I suspect you want the original list to be unmodified.
Thus, compare:
>>> def sort_print1(a_list):
a_list.sort()
print a_list
>>> def sort_print2(a_list):
t = list(a_list)
t.sort()
print t
>>> list1 = ["sort_print1", "mutates", "the", "original"]
>>> list2 = ["sort_print2", "doesn't", "mutate", "the", "original"]
>>> sort_print1(list1)
['mutates', 'original', 'sort_print1', 'the']
>>> list1
['mutates', 'original', 'sort_print1', 'the']
>>> sort_print2(list2)
["doesn't", 'mutate', 'original', 'sort_print2', 'the']
>>> list2
['sort_print2', "doesn't", 'mutate', 'the', 'original']
>>>
HTH,
Brian vdB
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