bpo-35224: Additional documentation for Assignment Expressions (GH-15935) (GH-15967)

Add or update assignment expression documentation for:
- FAQ - Design
- Reference - Expressions
- Reference - Lexical Analysis

https://bugs.python.org/issue35224

Automerge-Triggered-By: @matrixise
(cherry picked from commit 6357c95716)

Co-authored-by: Emily Morehouse <emily@cuttlesoft.com>
This commit is contained in:
Miss Islington (bot) 2019-09-11 08:12:09 -07:00 committed by Stéphane Wirtel
parent e784bb7c6b
commit be2aa58fdc
4 changed files with 9 additions and 60 deletions

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@ -149,66 +149,15 @@ to tell Python which namespace to use.
Why can't I use an assignment in an expression?
-----------------------------------------------
Many people used to C or Perl complain that they want to use this C idiom:
Starting in Python 3.8, you can!
.. code-block:: c
Assignment expressions using the walrus operator `:=` assign a variable in an
expression::
while (line = readline(f)) {
// do something with line
}
while chunk := fp.read(200):
print(chunk)
where in Python you're forced to write this::
while True:
line = f.readline()
if not line:
break
... # do something with line
The reason for not allowing assignment in Python expressions is a common,
hard-to-find bug in those other languages, caused by this construct:
.. code-block:: c
if (x = 0) {
// error handling
}
else {
// code that only works for nonzero x
}
The error is a simple typo: ``x = 0``, which assigns 0 to the variable ``x``,
was written while the comparison ``x == 0`` is certainly what was intended.
Many alternatives have been proposed. Most are hacks that save some typing but
use arbitrary or cryptic syntax or keywords, and fail the simple criterion for
language change proposals: it should intuitively suggest the proper meaning to a
human reader who has not yet been introduced to the construct.
An interesting phenomenon is that most experienced Python programmers recognize
the ``while True`` idiom and don't seem to be missing the assignment in
expression construct much; it's only newcomers who express a strong desire to
add this to the language.
There's an alternative way of spelling this that seems attractive but is
generally less robust than the "while True" solution::
line = f.readline()
while line:
... # do something with line...
line = f.readline()
The problem with this is that if you change your mind about exactly how you get
the next line (e.g. you want to change it into ``sys.stdin.readline()``) you
have to remember to change two places in your program -- the second occurrence
is hidden at the bottom of the loop.
The best approach is to use iterators, making it possible to loop through
objects using the ``for`` statement. For example, :term:`file objects
<file object>` support the iterator protocol, so you can write simply::
for line in f:
... # do something with line...
See :pep:`572` for more information.

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@ -1784,6 +1784,8 @@ precedence and have a left-to-right chaining feature as described in the
+-----------------------------------------------+-------------------------------------+
| Operator | Description |
+===============================================+=====================================+
| ``:=`` | Assignment expression |
+-----------------------------------------------+-------------------------------------+
| :keyword:`lambda` | Lambda expression |
+-----------------------------------------------+-------------------------------------+
| :keyword:`if <if_expr>` -- :keyword:`!else` | Conditional expression |

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@ -887,7 +887,7 @@ The following tokens are operators:
+ - * ** / // % @
<< >> & | ^ ~
<< >> & | ^ ~ :=
< > <= >= == !=

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@ -122,8 +122,6 @@ See :pep:`572` for a full description.
(Contributed by Emily Morehouse in :issue:`35224`.)
.. TODO: Emily will sprint on docs at PyCon US 2019.
Positional-only parameters
--------------------------