Multiple Unpacking Assignment in Python when you don't know the sequence length

Question

The textbook examples of multiple unpacking assignment are something like:

import numpy as NP
M = NP.arange(5)
a, b, c, d, e = M
# so of course, a = 0, b = 1         


        

Answer 1

Syntax for this is added to Python 3

>>> # Python 3.x only
>>> a, b, *c = range(10)
>>> a
0
>>> b
1
>>> c
[2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9]

but no similar solution exists in Python 2.

You can of course do

>>> s = range(10)
>>> s
[0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9]
>>> (a, b, c), rest = s[0:3], s[3:]
>>> a
0
>>> b
1
>>> c
2
>>> rest
[3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9]

or other similar solutions.

Answer 2

Python 3.x can do this easily:

a, b, *c = someseq

Python 2.x needs a bit more work:

(a, b), c = someseq[:2], someseq[2:]