Is there any reason why lVals = [1, 08, 2011] throws an exception?

Question

I have discovered one thing that makes me crazy. If I specify the following list:

lVals = [1, 01, 2011]

then no errors will be displayed, a

Answer 1

I guess what you're trying to do is split a date and put it in a list. This is what works for me:

>>> date = "28-08-2011".split("-")
>>> for i, num in enumerate(date):
...     date[i] = int(num, 10) # changes octal to decimal, thus losing the prefix 0
... 
>>> date
[28, 8, 2011]

Answer 2

In Java, the zero prefix would specify an Octal value - so 01...07 are fine, 08 would be an error as there is no 8 in Octal.

Answer 3

I don't really know Python, but I'd guess it takes the starting 0 as the beginning of an octal literal.

Answer 4

08 is attempting to parse 8 as an octal digit. It isn't one.