asterisk in tuple, list and set definitions, double asterisk in dict definition

Question

I'm playing now with Python 3.5 interpreter and found very interesting behavior:

>>> (1,2,3,"a",*("oi", "oi")*3)
(1, 2, 3, 'a', 'oi', 'oi', 'oi', 'oi', 'oi', 'oi')
>>> [1,2,3,"a",*range(10)]
[1, 2, 3, 'a', 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9]
>>> ('aw','aw',*range(10),*(x**2 for x in range(10)))
('aw', 'aw', 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 0, 1, 4, 9, 16, 25, 36, 49, 64, 81)
>>> {"trali":"vali", **dict(q=1,p=2)}
{'q': 1, 'p': 2, 'trali': 'vali'}
>>> {"a",1,11,*range(5)}
{0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 11, 'a'}

I have never seen that neither in documentation and examples nor in any source code despite several years of my Python experience. And I found it very useful.

And it seems logical for me from point of view of Python grammar. Function arguments and tuple may be parsed with same or similar states.

Is it documented behavior? Where is it documented?

Which versions of Python have this functionality?

Answer 1

This is PEP-448: Additional Unpacking Generalizations, which is new in Python 3.5.

The relevant change-log is in https://docs.python.org/3/whatsnew/3.5.html#pep-448-additional-unpacking-generalizations:

PEP 448 extends the allowed uses of the * iterable unpacking operator and ** dictionary unpacking operator. It is now possible to use an arbitrary number of unpackings in function calls:

>>>

>>> print(*[1], *[2], 3, *[4, 5])
1 2 3 4 5

>>> def fn(a, b, c, d):
...     print(a, b, c, d)
...

>>> fn(**{'a': 1, 'c': 3}, **{'b': 2, 'd': 4})
1 2 3 4

Similarly, tuple, list, set, and dictionary displays allow multiple unpackings:

>>>

>>> *range(4), 4
(0, 1, 2, 3, 4)

>>> [*range(4), 4]
[0, 1, 2, 3, 4]

>>> {*range(4), 4, *(5, 6, 7)}
{0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7}

>>> {'x': 1, **{'y': 2}}
{'x': 1, 'y': 2}