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Date: Sat, 21 Jul 2012 22:01:42 -0400
From: Dave Angel <d@davea.name>
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Subject: Re: My first ever Python program, comments welcome
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On 07/21/2012 09:56 PM, MRAB wrote:
> On 22/07/2012 01:32, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
>> On Sat, 21 Jul 2012 20:40:46 +0100, MRAB wrote:
>>
>>> On 21/07/2012 20:08, Lipska the Kat wrote:
>>>>     l=sorted(l, key=itemgetter(0))
>>>
>>> Short is:
>>>
>>>      l.sort(key=itemgetter(0))
>>
>> Shorter, and the semantics are subtly different.
>>
>> The sorted function returns a copy of the input list.
>>
>> The list.sort method sorts the list in place.
>>
> Since the result is bound to the original name, the
> result is the same.
>

In this particular program, yes.  But if there's another variable bound
to the same list, then the fact that there's a new object from sorted()
makes a difference.



-- 

DaveA