Understanding *x ,= lst

Question

I\'m going through some old code trying to understand what it does, and I came across this odd statement:

*x ,= p

p is a list in t

Answer 1

*x ,= p is basically an obfuscated version of x = list(p) using extended iterable unpacking. The comma after x is required to make the assignment target a tuple (it could also be a list though).

*x, = p is different from x = p because the former creates a copy of p (i.e. a new list) while the latter creates a reference to the original list. To illustrate:

>>> p = [1, 2]
>>> *x, = p 
>>> x == p
True
>>> x is p
False
>>> x = p
>>> x == p
True
>>> x is p
True