Hidden features of Python [closed]

Answer 1

In-place value swapping

>>> a = 10
>>> b = 5
>>> a, b
(10, 5)

>>> a, b = b, a
>>> a, b
(5, 10)

The right-hand side of the assignment is an expression that creates a new tuple. The left-hand side of the assignment immediately unpacks that (unreferenced) tuple to the names a and b.

After the assignment, the new tuple is unreferenced and marked for garbage collection, and the values bound to a and b have been swapped.

As noted in the Python tutorial section on data structures,

Note that multiple assignment is really just a combination of tuple packing and sequence unpacking.