Python version:

Python 3.8.3 (default, May 15 2020, 00:00:00) 
[GCC 10.1.1 20200507 (Red Hat 10.1.1-1)] on linux

Description:

When assigning to a tuple index using +=, if the element at that index is a list, the list is extended and a TypeError is raised.

a = ([],)
try:
    a[0] += [1]
except TypeError:
    assert a != ([1],)  # assertion fails
else:
    assert a == ([1],)

The expected behaviour is that only one of those things would happen (probably the list being extended with no error, given that a[0].extend([1]) works fine).

Alas, this gotcha is the consequence of the way `+=` is defined in Python. Although the behaviour is surprising, there's nothing to fix because everything is working as expected:

* addition to a list will extend the list, as expected;
* trying to assign into a tuple will fail, as expected.

It's just the combination that is surprising.

There's even a FAQ for it:

https://docs.python.org/3/faq/programming.html#why-does-a-tuple-i-item-raise-an-exception-when-the-addition-works

Multiple steps happens at once here, first the list is extended, then the result is written back to the tuple, at which point it raises TypeError because you can't write to a tuple. When TypeError is raised, the list has already be extended. The code is equivalent to:


a = ([],)
try:
    b = a[0]
    b += [1]
    a[0] = b
except TypeError:
    assert a != ([1],)  # assertion fails
else:
    assert a == ([1],)


This is explained in the documentation at https://docs.python.org/3/reference/simple_stmts.html#augmented-assignment-statements:


An augmented assignment expression like x += 1 can be rewritten as x = x + 1 to achieve a similar, but not exactly equal effect. In the augmented version, x is only evaluated once. Also, when possible, the actual operation is performed in-place, meaning that rather than creating a new object and assigning that to the target, the old object is modified instead.

Unlike normal assignments, augmented assignments evaluate the left-hand side before evaluating the right-hand side. For example, a[i] += f(x) first looks-up a[i], then it evaluates f(x) and performs the addition, and lastly, it writes the result back to a[i].

Got it, I didn't realize that the last step of augmented assignment is (in this case) assigning the result of __iadd__ back to the tuple.

Thanks for the explanations!