Groups | Search | Server Info | Keyboard shortcuts | Login | Register [http] [https] [nntp] [nntps]
Groups > comp.lang.python > #45833
| Date | 2013-05-23 14:52 -0400 |
|---|---|
| From | Matthew Gilson <m.gilson1@gmail.com> |
| Subject | Non-identifiers in dictionary keys for **expression syntax |
| Newsgroups | comp.lang.python |
| Message-ID | <mailman.2029.1369335137.3114.python-list@python.org> (permalink) |
[Multipart message — attachments visible in raw view] - view raw
This is a question regarding the documentation around dictionary
unpacking. The documentation for the call syntax
(http://docs.python.org/3/reference/expressions.html#grammar-token-call)
says:
"If the syntax **expression appears in the function call, expression
must evaluate to a mapping, the contents of which are treated as
additional keyword arguments."
That's fine, but what is a keyword argument? According to the glossary
(http://docs.python.org/3.3/glossary.html):
/"keyword argument/: an argument preceded by an identifier (e.g. name=)
in a function call or passed as a value in a dictionary preceded by **."
As far as I'm concerned, this leads to some ambiguity in whether the
keys of the mapping need to be valid identifiers or not.
Using Cpython, we can do the following:
def func(**kwargs):
print kwargs
d = {'foo bar baz':3}
So that might lead us to believe that the keys of the mapping do not
need to be valid identifiers. However, the previous function does not
work with the following dictionary:
d = {1:3}
because not all the keys are strings. Is there a way to petition to get
this more rigorously defined?
Thanks,
~Matt
Back to comp.lang.python | Previous | Next — Next in thread | Find similar | Unroll thread
Non-identifiers in dictionary keys for **expression syntax Matthew Gilson <m.gilson1@gmail.com> - 2013-05-23 14:52 -0400
Re: Non-identifiers in dictionary keys for **expression syntax Neil Cerutti <neilc@norwich.edu> - 2013-05-23 19:20 +0000
Re: Non-identifiers in dictionary keys for **expression syntax Ethan Furman <ethan@stoneleaf.us> - 2013-05-23 12:37 -0700
Re: Non-identifiers in dictionary keys for **expression syntax Matthew Gilson <m.gilson1@gmail.com> - 2013-05-23 16:49 -0400
csiph-web