Python star unpacking for version 2.7

Question

As mentioned here, you can use the star for unpacking an unknown number of variables (like in functions), but only in python 3:

>>> a, *b = (1, 2, 3         


        

Answer 1

in python 2.X, you can do:

c = (1, 2, 3)
a, b = c[0], c[1:]

as long as c has at least one member it will work because if c only has 1 thing in it c[1:] is [].

You should probably make sure there is at least one thing in c though, or else c[0] will raise an exception.

You could do something like:

try:
    c = tuple(c)
    a, b = c[0], c[1:]
except TypeError, IndexError:
    # c is not iterable, or c is iterable, but it doesn't have any stuff in it.
    # do something else
    pass