Question

Edited to add: Drat it! I didn’t have the latest version of the code. It was a bug and he fixed it. Please join me in voting to close.

I’m looking at somebody else’s Python code that says:

bar = [].append(foo)

I believe this is an overly complicated way of saying the same as :

bar = [foo]

I wondered if he was simply ignorant of the Python syntax, but generally his Python code seems quite competent and in another place in the code, he has written:

qux(param=[foo])

So, that doesn’t explain it.

Am I missing something? Is this a useful idiom I am not aware of? (e.g. it is more performant, works on older versions of Python, etc.)

Answer 1

No, it is an overly complicated way of saying bar = None. List methods operate in-place, and hence return None.