byref

Pass arguments by reference—in Python!

byrefis a decorator that allows Python functions to declare reference parameters, with similar semantics to C++’s T& or C#’s ref T. Any modifications made within the function to these parameters will be picked up by the caller.

Usage

from byref import byref

@byref("x")
def add(x, y, /):
    x += y

a = 60
add(a, 40)
print(f"{a}!") # this prints 100!

Motivation

I thought it would be funny.

Implementation

For what looks like a simple feature, this is surprisingly difficult to implement (638 lines, at time of writing). See CURSED.md.

Installation

Please see the releases section for prebuilt Python 3 wheels.

License

ISC License

GitHub

https://github.com/startrekdude/byref