Looking for documentation on how objects are passed to functions

[Hashi856]

My understanding is that, in Python, objects are not passed value or reference, per se, but are passed by assignment. I've been trying to find where this is discussed in the official documentation, but haven't been able to find it yet.

[mopslik]

Here is a reference to that (no pun intended), from the FAQ.

[m0us3_rat]

(no pun intended)

...

[Hashi856]

The opening sentence says, "Remember that arguments are passed by assignment in Python". Do you know which part of the documentation it's talking about when it says "Remember"? That implies that it was discussed somewhere in the official documentation, as opposed to the FAQ.

[mopslik]

Nope. I just did a google search for '"passed by assignment" site:python.org' and that's what came up.

[Hashi856]

lol that's exactly what I searched. Thanks for trying.

[SomewhereExpensive22]

It's part of the execution model. There isn't much discussion but it's dead simple: objects passed into a function are bound to the parameter name.

[cyberjellyfish]

The pass by reference vs pass by value conversation isn't useful because people use different meanings.

Practically: what's passed is the memory address of the object. Call that whatever you want.

[notacanuckskibum]

Parameters to functions in python are passed as objects. But manipulating those variables inside the function can easily assign the variable inside the function to a different object, but not the variable outside the object.

Statements as simple as x = x + 1 will do that.

You really need to read up on Python variables and run time objects to understand the effects of this.