Question

I am new to python and I am trying to run following code:

m=int(raw_input())
l=[[0]*2]*m
for i in range(0,m):
    for j in range(0,2):
        l[i][j]=raw_input()
        print l
        print "-------"

Output:

3
1
[['1', 0], ['1', 0], ['1', 0]]
-------
2
[['1', '2'], ['1', '2'], ['1', '2']]
-------
3
[['3', '2'], ['3', '2'], ['3', '2']]
-------
4
[['3', '4'], ['3', '4'], ['3', '4']]
-------
5
[['5', '4'], ['5', '4'], ['5', '4']]
-------
6
[['5', '6'], ['5', '6'], ['5', '6']]

but, when i dry run the program the expected output should be

3
1
[['1', 0], ['1', 0], ['1', 0]]
-------
2
[['1', '2'], ['1', '2'], ['1', '2']]
-------
3
[['1', '2'], ['3', '2'], ['1', '2']]
-------
4
[['1', '2'], ['3', '4'], ['1', '2']]
-------
5
[['1', '2'], ['3', '4'], ['5', '2']
-------
6
[['1', '2'], ['3', '4'], ['5', '6']]

Its like after each iteration list is reassigned, but as I am incrementing ‘i’ list elements should be like the expected output. Please i need help..

Answer 1

s * n, n * s    ==>   n shallow copies of s concatenated 

Note that the copies are shallow; nested structures are not copied.
This often haunts new Python programmers; consider:

>>> lists = [[]] * 3
>>> lists
[[], [], []]
>>> lists[0].append(3)
>>> lists
[[3], [3], [3]]

You can change your code to:

l = [[0 for i in range(2)] for j in range(m)]