How to avoid side effect in for loop using slicing operator in a list in python?
This is quoted from the link : http://www.python-course.eu/for_loop.php -
To avoid these side effects, it's best to work on a copy by using the slicing operator, as can be seen in the next example:
colours = ["red"]
for i in colours[:]:
if i == "red":
colours += ["black"]
if i == "black":
colours += ["white"]
print colours
The output is :
['red', 'black']
My question is: does the statement
colours[:]["balck"]
does the statement colours[:] makes a copy of the colours list: Yes.
and the for loop works on the copy instead of the original list? Yes, but be careful what you mean by "works on". The variable i takes its values from a copy of list colours. However, the references to colours such as in the line colours += ["black"] refer to the original list. That is just what the code wants, so it works.
If it is so, then how the ["balck"] is appended to the original colour list? This is because the line that does the appending refers to the original list and not the copy of the list.