Python bisect behaviour with lists

Question

I've been playing with bisect and I'm confused with the following behaviour:

Input:

test = 1
print(test)

bisect.insort([test], 6)

Output:

1
1

If I change when I define test as a list, I get a different response:

Input:

test = [1]
print(test)

bisect.insort(test, 6)

Output:

[1]
[1, 6]

Why does it do this?

Sure. Will do that now. P.s. In the future, you could ask people to do this, and then give them a chance to respond before marking them down. — Mr. Meeseeks, Jul 31 '20 at 14:20
I did not downvote your question. In any case, you should not be bothered about downvotes. Ask good questions and give good answers, the points will come. — Pranav Hosangadi, Jul 31 '20 at 14:29
Okay, sorry for the assumption. I appreciate your help with the correct formatting, thanks. — Mr. Meeseeks, Jul 31 '20 at 14:44

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Jul 30 '20 at 17:02

bisect.insort appears to work "in place" on whatever is passed to it. So, in the first example you pass it a list that is known only in the scope of the function [test] and it will insert into that list and make a list of [1, 6] but it does not return that result or modify the variable test--which is a good thing.

Python bisect behaviour with lists

1 Answers1