You might be familiar with the compound operator in Python.
For those, who didn't.They are used to shorten the expressions.
Example
a = 2
If we want to increment the value of a by 1, we need to use the below notation.
a = a + 1
But, with the help of a compound operator, you can do it as below.
a += 1
Which is essentially equal to a=a+1 (umm.. not always)
There are some cases that don't follow this above rule.
Example
Consider the below example,
a = [1,2,3]
b = a
a += [4,5] # Compund operator
print(a)
print(b)
This will output,
[1,2,3,4,5]
[1,2,3,4,5]
That's what we expected right? Now here comes the twist, Now let's try without a compound operator, and let's see the output.
a = [1,2,3]
b = a
a = a + [4,5] # Without compound operator
print(a)
print(b)
This will output,
[1,2,3,4,5]
[1,2,3]
As you can see, the output is the same for the list a but the list b alters.
What's the reason?
a += [4,5]
In the above case, the list will be extended. So, as we assigned this list to another list, both will be changed.
But, when we use the below method. it creates a new list and appends the values. so it won't affect the list b
a = a + [4,5]
Top comments (1)
Yeah compund operator creates a shallow copy.