You're right, python2 doesn't have the extended unpacking (star) syntax. Furthermore, this: >>> a, *b = range(2**128) Traceback (most recent call last)

You're right, python2 doesn't have the extended unpacking (star) syntax. Furthermore, this: >>> a, *b = range(2**128) Traceback (most recent call last): File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module> OverflowError: Python int too large to convert to C ssize_t Ha.