Why does changing one list change another - Python

Question

I have recently started learning python. I have the following code:

x = []
y = x
y.append(10)

The issue here is, I am appending the variable y but for some reason, variable x is also getting appended. Why is this happening? 

Answer 1

Hey @Aleesha, here when you write x=y, you're not creating a copy of x and assigning that to y. Instead, it creates a new variable y and a reference to the object x is passed. This means that there is only one object (the list), and both x and y refer to it. Hence changing y will change x also.

Answer 2

I think Kanika answered this one well, but if you want to get around it you can do:

x = [1, 2, 3]

y = [*x]

Instead of making y a copy of x, it unpacks x, which is like doing:

x = [1, 2, 3]

y = [x[0], x[1], x[2]]