Question

Is there a way to group names together in python, to repeatedly assign to them en masse?

While we can do:

a,b,c = (1,2,3)

I would like to be able to do something like:

names = a,b,c

*names = (3,2,1) # this syntax doesn't work

a,b,c == (3,2,1) #=> True

Is there a built-in syntax for this? If not, I assume it would be possible with an object that overloads its assignment operator. In that case, is there an existing implementation, and would this concept have any unexpected failure modes?

The point is not to use the names as data, but rather to be able to use the actual names as variables that each refer to their own individual item, and to be able to use the list as a list, and to avoid code like:

a = 1
b = 2
c = 3

sequence = (a,b,c)

Answer 1

This?

>>> from collections import namedtuple
>>> names = namedtuple( 'names', ['a','b','c'] )

>>> thing= names(3,2,1)
>>> thing.a
3
>>> thing.b
2
>>> thing.c
1