From: adustman at comstar.net (Andy Dustman)
Date: Mon, 12 Apr 1999 23:06:08 GMT
Subject: role of semilcolon
In-Reply-To: <slrn7h4q72.mou.rasumner@bach.wisdom.weizmann.ac.il>
References: <slrn7h4q72.mou.rasumner@bach.wisdom.weizmann.ac.il>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.10.9904121900560.12527-100000@kenny.comstar.net>
X-UID: 149                                                  

On 12 Apr 1999, Reuben Sumner wrote:

> In the python interpreter doing 'a=1;b=2;b=3' does what I would
> expect, three seperate assignments.  However ; doesn't seem to appear
> in the language reference except in the list of delimeters.  Is the
> above example formally valid python?

Semicolon is a statement separator. So is the end of line unless you have
open parentheses, brackets, braces, or triple-quotes. So:

	a=1;b=2;b=3

is the same as:

	a=1
	b=2
	b=3

But a Pythonism you may want to adapt is:

	a,b,c = 1,2,3

In practice, semicolon is rarely used in Python, since the end of line
separates statements just as well with one less byte (none vs. one :), and
multiple assignments can be done as above.

-- 
andy dustman  | programmer/analyst |  comstar communications corporation
telephone: 770.485.6025 / 706.549.7689 | icq: 32922760 | pgp: 0xc72f3f1d





