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Python Gotchas

python Jun 14, 2017

gotcha: n.
A misfeature of a system, especially a programming language or environment, that tends to breed bugs or mistakes because it is both enticingly easy to invoke and completely unexpected and/or unreasonable in its outcome.
For example, a classic gotcha in C is the fact that if (a=b) {code;} is syntactically valid and sometimes even correct. It puts the value of b into a and then executes code if a is non-zero. What the programmer probably meant was if (a==b) {code;}, which executes code if a and b are equal.

Here are some interesting python gotchas -

>>> value_or_values = 1, 
>>> # creates a tuple (1,)

>>> value_or_values[False]
>>> 1
>>> # returns value 1

>>> value_or_values[True]
Traceback (most recent call last):
    File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
IndexError: tuple index out of range
>>> # See what happened there?

>>> isinstance(True, int)
>>> True
>>> # I am sure you must have figured it out now.

>>> # Very bad example of getting a list of even numbers but still ...
>>> # It gets us the desired result here, but never remove elements from a running list.
>>> li = range(10)
>>> for value in li:
>>> ...:     if value % 2 != 0:
>>> ...:      li.remove(value)
>>> ...:
>>> print(li)
>>> [0, 2, 4, 6, 8]

>>> # more soon

References :

Definition: Gotcha

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