6.2.1. Identifiers (Names)

An identifier occurring as an atom is a name. See section Identifiers and keywords for lexical definition and section Naming and binding for documentation of naming and binding.

When the name is bound to an object, evaluation of the atom yields that object. When a name is not bound, an attempt to evaluate it raises a NameError exception.

Private name mangling: When an identifier that textually occurs in a class definition begins with two or more underscore characters and does not end in two or more underscores, it is considered a private name of that class. Private names are transformed to a longer form before code is generated for them. The transformation inserts the class name, with leading underscores removed and a single underscore inserted, in front of the name. For example, the identifier __spam occurring in a class named Ham will be transformed to _Ham__spam. This transformation is independent of the syntactical context in which the identifier is used. If the transformed name is extremely long (longer than 255 characters), implementation defined truncation may happen. If the class name consists only of underscores, no transformation is done.

6.2.2. Literals

Python supports string and bytes literals and various numeric literals:

literal ::=  stringliteral | bytesliteral
             | integer | floatnumber | imagnumber

Evaluation of a literal yields an object of the given type (string, bytes, integer, floating point number, complex number) with the given value. The value may be approximated in the case of floating point and imaginary (complex) literals. See section Literals for details.

All literals correspond to immutable data types, and hence the object’s identity is less important than its value. Multiple evaluations of literals with the same value (either the same occurrence in the program text or a different occurrence) may obtain the same object or a different object with the same value.

6.2.3. Parenthesized forms

A parenthesized form is an optional expression list enclosed in parentheses:

parenth_form ::=  "(" [expression_list] ")"

A parenthesized expression list yields whatever that expression list yields: if the list contains at least one comma, it yields a tuple; otherwise, it yields the single expression that makes up the expression list.

An empty pair of parentheses yields an empty tuple object. Since tuples are immutable, the rules for literals apply (i.e., two occurrences of the empty tuple may or may not yield the same object).

Note that tuples are not formed by the parentheses, but rather by use of the comma operator. The exception is the empty tuple, for which parentheses are required — allowing unparenthesized “nothing” in expressions would cause ambiguities and allow common typos to pass uncaught.

6.2.4. Displays for lists, sets and dictionaries

For constructing a list, a set or a dictionary Python provides special syntax called “displays”, each of them in two flavors:

• either the container contents are listed explicitly, or
• they are computed via a set of looping and filtering instructions, called a comprehension.

Common syntax elements for comprehensions are:

comprehension ::=  expression comp_for
comp_for      ::=  "for" target_list "in" or_test [comp_iter]
comp_iter     ::=  comp_for | comp_if
comp_if       ::=  "if" expression_nocond [comp_iter]

The comprehension consists of a single expression followed by at least one for clause and zero or more for or if clauses. In this case, the elements of the new container are those that would be produced by considering each of the for or if clauses a block, nesting from left to right, and evaluating the expression to produce an element each time the innermost block is reached.

Note that the comprehension is executed in a separate scope, so names assigned to in the target list don’t “leak” into the enclosing scope.

6.2.5. List displays

A list display is a possibly empty series of expressions enclosed in square brackets:

list_display ::=  "[" [expression_list | comprehension] "]"

A list display yields a new list object, the contents being specified by either a list of expressions or a comprehension. When a comma-separated list of expressions is supplied, its elements are evaluated from left to right and placed into the list object in that order. When a comprehension is supplied, the list is constructed from the elements resulting from the comprehension.

6.2.6. Set displays

A set display is denoted by curly braces and distinguishable from dictionary displays by the lack of colons separating keys and values:

set_display ::=  "{" (expression_list | comprehension) "}"

A set display yields a new mutable set object, the contents being specified by either a sequence of expressions or a comprehension. When a comma-separated list of expressions is supplied, its elements are evaluated from left to right and added to the set object. When a comprehension is supplied, the set is constructed from the elements resulting from the comprehension.

An empty set cannot be constructed with {}; this literal constructs an empty dictionary.

6.2.7. Dictionary displays

A dictionary display is a possibly empty series of key/datum pairs enclosed in curly braces:

dict_display       ::=  "{" [key_datum_list | dict_comprehension] "}"
key_datum_list     ::=  key_datum ("," key_datum)* [","]
key_datum          ::=  expression ":" expression
dict_comprehension ::=  expression ":" expression comp_for

A dictionary display yields a new dictionary object.

If a comma-separated sequence of key/datum pairs is given, they are evaluated from left to right to define the entries of the dictionary: each key object is used as a key into the dictionary to store the corresponding datum. This means that you can specify the same key multiple times in the key/datum list, and the final dictionary’s value for that key will be the last one given.

A dict comprehension, in contrast to list and set comprehensions, needs two expressions separated with a colon followed by the usual “for” and “if” clauses. When the comprehension is run, the resulting key and value elements are inserted in the new dictionary in the order they are produced.

Restrictions on the types of the key values are listed earlier in section The standard type hierarchy. (To summarize, the key type should be hashable, which excludes all mutable objects.) Clashes between duplicate keys are not detected; the last datum (textually rightmost in the display) stored for a given key value prevails.

6.2.8. Generator expressions

A generator expression is a compact generator notation in parentheses:

generator_expression ::=  "(" expression comp_for ")"

A generator expression yields a new generator object. Its syntax is the same as for comprehensions, except that it is enclosed in parentheses instead of brackets or curly braces.

Variables used in the generator expression are evaluated lazily when the __next__() method is called for the generator object (in the same fashion as normal generators). However, the leftmost for clause is immediately evaluated, so that an error produced by it can be seen before any other possible error in the code that handles the generator expression. Subsequent for clauses cannot be evaluated immediately since they may depend on the previous for loop. For example: (x*y for x in range(10) for y in bar(x)).

The parentheses can be omitted on calls with only one argument. See section Calls for details.

6.2.9. Yield expressions

yield_atom       ::=  "(" yield_expression ")"
yield_expression ::=  "yield" [expression_list | "from" expression]

The yield expression is only used when defining a generator function and thus can only be used in the body of a function definition. Using a yield expression in a function’s body causes that function to be a generator.

When a generator function is called, it returns an iterator known as a generator. That generator then controls the execution of the generator function. The execution starts when one of the generator’s methods is called. At that time, the execution proceeds to the first yield expression, where it is suspended again, returning the value of expression_list to the generator’s caller. By suspended, we mean that all local state is retained, including the current bindings of local variables, the instruction pointer, the internal evaluation stack, and the state of any exception handling. When the execution is resumed by calling one of the generator’s methods, the function can proceed exactly as if the yield expression were just another external call. The value of the yield expression after resuming depends on the method which resumed the execution. If __next__() is used (typically via either a for or the next() builtin) then the result is None. Otherwise, if send() is used, then the result will be the value passed in to that method.

All of this makes generator functions quite similar to coroutines; they yield multiple times, they have more than one entry point and their execution can be suspended. The only difference is that a generator function cannot control where the execution should continue after it yields; the control is always transferred to the generator’s caller.

Yield expressions are allowed anywhere in a try construct. If the generator is not resumed before it is finalized (by reaching a zero reference count or by being garbage collected), the generator-iterator’s close() method will be called, allowing any pending finally clauses to execute.

When yield from <expr> is used, it treats the supplied expression as a subiterator. All values produced by that subiterator are passed directly to the caller of the current generator’s methods. Any values passed in with send() and any exceptions passed in with throw() are passed to the underlying iterator if it has the appropriate methods. If this is not the case, then send() will raise AttributeError or TypeError, while throw() will just raise the passed in exception immediately.

When the underlying iterator is complete, the value attribute of the raised StopIteration instance becomes the value of the yield expression. It can be either set explicitly when raising StopIteration, or automatically when the sub-iterator is a generator (by returning a value from the sub-generator).

Changed in version 3.3: Added yield from <expr> to delegate control flow to a subiterator

The parentheses may be omitted when the yield expression is the sole expression on the right hand side of an assignment statement.

>>> def echo(value=None):
...     print("Execution starts when 'next()' is called for the first time.")
...     try:
...         while True:
...             try:
...                 value = (yield value)
...             except Exception as e:
...                 value = e
...     finally:
...         print("Don't forget to clean up when 'close()' is called.")
...
>>> generator = echo(1)
>>> print(next(generator))
Execution starts when 'next()' is called for the first time.
1
>>> print(next(generator))
None
>>> print(generator.send(2))
2
>>> generator.throw(TypeError, "spam")
TypeError('spam',)
>>> generator.close()
Don't forget to clean up when 'close()' is called.

6.3.1. Attribute references

An attribute reference is a primary followed by a period and a name:

attributeref ::=  primary "." identifier

The primary must evaluate to an object of a type that supports attribute references, which most objects do. This object is then asked to produce the attribute whose name is the identifier. This production can be customized by overriding the __getattr__() method. If this attribute is not available, the exception AttributeError is raised. Otherwise, the type and value of the object produced is determined by the object. Multiple evaluations of the same attribute reference may yield different objects.

6.3.2. Subscriptions

A subscription selects an item of a sequence (string, tuple or list) or mapping (dictionary) object:

subscription ::=  primary "[" expression_list "]"

The primary must evaluate to an object that supports subscription (lists or dictionaries for example). User-defined objects can support subscription by defining a __getitem__() method.

For built-in objects, there are two types of objects that support subscription:

If the primary is a mapping, the expression list must evaluate to an object whose value is one of the keys of the mapping, and the subscription selects the value in the mapping that corresponds to that key. (The expression list is a tuple except if it has exactly one item.)

If the primary is a sequence, the expression (list) must evaluate to an integer or a slice (as discussed in the following section).

The formal syntax makes no special provision for negative indices in sequences; however, built-in sequences all provide a __getitem__() method that interprets negative indices by adding the length of the sequence to the index (so that x[-1] selects the last item of x). The resulting value must be a nonnegative integer less than the number of items in the sequence, and the subscription selects the item whose index is that value (counting from zero). Since the support for negative indices and slicing occurs in the object’s __getitem__() method, subclasses overriding this method will need to explicitly add that support.

A string’s items are characters. A character is not a separate data type but a string of exactly one character.

6.3.3. Slicings

A slicing selects a range of items in a sequence object (e.g., a string, tuple or list). Slicings may be used as expressions or as targets in assignment or del statements. The syntax for a slicing:

slicing      ::=  primary "[" slice_list "]"
slice_list   ::=  slice_item ("," slice_item)* [","]
slice_item   ::=  expression | proper_slice
proper_slice ::=  [lower_bound] ":" [upper_bound] [ ":" [stride] ]
lower_bound  ::=  expression
upper_bound  ::=  expression
stride       ::=  expression

There is ambiguity in the formal syntax here: anything that looks like an expression list also looks like a slice list, so any subscription can be interpreted as a slicing. Rather than further complicating the syntax, this is disambiguated by defining that in this case the interpretation as a subscription takes priority over the interpretation as a slicing (this is the case if the slice list contains no proper slice).

The semantics for a slicing are as follows. The primary is indexed (using the same __getitem__() method as normal subscription) with a key that is constructed from the slice list, as follows. If the slice list contains at least one comma, the key is a tuple containing the conversion of the slice items; otherwise, the conversion of the lone slice item is the key. The conversion of a slice item that is an expression is that expression. The conversion of a proper slice is a slice object (see section The standard type hierarchy) whose start, stop and step attributes are the values of the expressions given as lower bound, upper bound and stride, respectively, substituting None for missing expressions.

6.3.4. Calls

A call calls a callable object (e.g., a function) with a possibly empty series of arguments:

call                 ::=  primary "(" [argument_list [","] | comprehension] ")"
argument_list        ::=  positional_arguments ["," keyword_arguments]
                            ["," "*" expression] ["," keyword_arguments]
                            ["," "**" expression]
                          | keyword_arguments ["," "*" expression]
                            ["," keyword_arguments] ["," "**" expression]
                          | "*" expression ["," keyword_arguments] ["," "**" expression]
                          | "**" expression
positional_arguments ::=  expression ("," expression)*
keyword_arguments    ::=  keyword_item ("," keyword_item)*
keyword_item         ::=  identifier "=" expression

An optional trailing comma may be present after the positional and keyword arguments but does not affect the semantics.

The primary must evaluate to a callable object (user-defined functions, built-in functions, methods of built-in objects, class objects, methods of class instances, and all objects having a __call__() method are callable). All argument expressions are evaluated before the call is attempted. Please refer to section Function definitions for the syntax of formal parameter lists.

If keyword arguments are present, they are first converted to positional arguments, as follows. First, a list of unfilled slots is created for the formal parameters. If there are N positional arguments, they are placed in the first N slots. Next, for each keyword argument, the identifier is used to determine the corresponding slot (if the identifier is the same as the first formal parameter name, the first slot is used, and so on). If the slot is already filled, a TypeError exception is raised. Otherwise, the value of the argument is placed in the slot, filling it (even if the expression is None, it fills the slot). When all arguments have been processed, the slots that are still unfilled are filled with the corresponding default value from the function definition. (Default values are calculated, once, when the function is defined; thus, a mutable object such as a list or dictionary used as default value will be shared by all calls that don’t specify an argument value for the corresponding slot; this should usually be avoided.) If there are any unfilled slots for which no default value is specified, a TypeError exception is raised. Otherwise, the list of filled slots is used as the argument list for the call.

If there are more positional arguments than there are formal parameter slots, a TypeError exception is raised, unless a formal parameter using the syntax *identifier is present; in this case, that formal parameter receives a tuple containing the excess positional arguments (or an empty tuple if there were no excess positional arguments).

If any keyword argument does not correspond to a formal parameter name, a TypeError exception is raised, unless a formal parameter using the syntax **identifier is present; in this case, that formal parameter receives a dictionary containing the excess keyword arguments (using the keywords as keys and the argument values as corresponding values), or a (new) empty dictionary if there were no excess keyword arguments.

If the syntax *expression appears in the function call, expression must evaluate to an iterable. Elements from this iterable are treated as if they were additional positional arguments; if there are positional arguments x1, ..., xN, and expression evaluates to a sequence y1, ..., yM, this is equivalent to a call with M+N positional arguments x1, ..., xN, y1, ..., yM.

A consequence of this is that although the *expression syntax may appear after some keyword arguments, it is processed before the keyword arguments (and the **expression argument, if any – see below). So:

>>> def f(a, b):
...  print(a, b)
...
>>> f(b=1, *(2,))
2 1
>>> f(a=1, *(2,))
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in ?
TypeError: f() got multiple values for keyword argument 'a'
>>> f(1, *(2,))
1 2

It is unusual for both keyword arguments and the *expression syntax to be used in the same call, so in practice this confusion does not arise.

If the syntax **expression appears in the function call, expression must evaluate to a mapping, the contents of which are treated as additional keyword arguments. In the case of a keyword appearing in both expression and as an explicit keyword argument, a TypeError exception is raised.

Formal parameters using the syntax *identifier or **identifier cannot be used as positional argument slots or as keyword argument names.

A call always returns some value, possibly None, unless it raises an exception. How this value is computed depends on the type of the callable object.

If it is—

a user-defined function:

The code block for the function is executed, passing it the argument list. The first thing the code block will do is bind the formal parameters to the arguments; this is described in section Function definitions. When the code block executes a return statement, this specifies the return value of the function call.

a built-in function or method:

The result is up to the interpreter; see Built-in Functions for the descriptions of built-in functions and methods.

a class object:

A new instance of that class is returned.

a class instance method:

The corresponding user-defined function is called, with an argument list that is one longer than the argument list of the call: the instance becomes the first argument.

a class instance:

The class must define a __call__() method; the effect is then the same as if that method was called.

New in version 3.5.

New in version 3.5.