Python star unpacking for version 2.7

in python 2.X, you can do:

c = (1, 2, 3)
a, b = c[0], c[1:]

as long as c has at least one member it will work because if c only has 1 thing in it c[1:] is [].

You should probably make sure there is at least one thing in c though, or else c[0] will raise an exception.

You could do something like:

try:
    c = tuple(c)
    a, b = c[0], c[1:]
except TypeError, IndexError:
    # c is not iterable, or c is iterable, but it doesn't have any stuff in it.
    # do something else
    pass

(a,b) = (None, []) if not len(c) else (c[0], c[1:])

is also an option for handling the case where c is an empty sequence, although it won't distinguish between [None] and [] in terms as assignments to a, b. So use it with care, the try / except is probably best.

I can see no real difference between Python 3 and 2.7 when handling an empty container, but the nice thing about Python 3 here is it works with any iterable.

This works in 2.7 if you know c is a generator.

a,b = c.next(), c

But the full beauty of unpacking seems to require Python 3.