Most elegant way to assign multiple variables to the same value?

Question

This question may already been asked but I couldn't find a proper way to assign multiple variables to one value without linking them to it, so bear with me.

Example 1:

a = b = []
a.append('x')
> a = ['x']
> b = ['x']

Since I append 'x' to a I don't want to have it in b.

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Example 2:

a, b = [[], []]
a.append('x')
> a = ['x']
> b = []

Works as expected but with multiple variables it becomes really ugly:

a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i j = [[], [], [], [], [], [], ...]

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Example 3:

The default way

a = []
b = []
...

Same as example 2, it's not pretty with multiple variables.

I was wondering if something like this exists like in javascript?

a, b, c = [] #this actually gives a ValueError: not enough values to unpack

Any suggestions or am I limited to this?

Note: for some reason I have to avoid using dictionaries for this task. (limitation...)

Answer 1

I would suggest you use fewer independent variables first and foremost. Any code that literally has a, b, c, d, e, ... in it should be refactored to something simpler.

Having said that:

a, b, c = ([] for _ in range(3))

The generator creates a new [] for as many items as you specify in the range.