Is there a shorthand syntax for a sequence of throwaway variables?

Question

Let\'s say you have a situation like this:

_, _, _, substring_1, _, substring_2 = some_string.split(\',\')

Is there a shorthand way of expressi

Answer 1

You could just use str.rsplit with a limit:

>>> s = 'a,b,c,d,e,f'
>>> s.rsplit(',', 3)  # i.e. split on at most three commas, from the right
['a,b,c', 'd', 'e', 'f']
>>> _, d, _, f = s.rsplit(',', 3)
>>> d
'd'
>>> f
'f'

---

If you upgrade to Python 3.x, you can use *_ to absorb an arbitrary number of elements (you'll get a SyntaxError in 2.x, though):

>>> *_, d, _, f = s.split(',')
>>> d
'd'
>>> f
'f'