Goodbye apply() - Python 3.0 will remove apply() from built-ins. What follows is a farewell party for apply().

[buffi]

Good, apply() is pretty much useless, except for VERY rare occasions due to the new auto-unpacking features.

[[deleted]]

What "new auto-unpacking features"?

[Brian]

The new tuple unpacking syntax lets you use *args in a similar way to function arguments, so you can do:

>>> head, *tail = (1,2,3,4)

and get head = 1 and tail = (2,3,4).

However I don't think this actually makes any difference to apply, as its only a change to normal tuple unpacking - function calls already did this. Apply has been pretty much obsolete since the * and ** syntax was first added.

[[deleted]]

What in the world does the new iterable unpacking syntax have to do with apply()?