Why Does Del (x) With Parentheses Around The Variable Name Work?

Why does this piece of code work the way it does? x = 3 print(dir()) #output indicates that x is defined in the global scope del (x) print(dir()) #output indicates that x is no

Solution 1:

The definition of the del statement is:

del_stmt ::=  "del" target_list

and from the definition of target_list:

target_list ::=  target ("," target)* [","]
target      ::=  identifier
                 | "(" target_list ")"
                 | "[" [target_list] "]"
                 | ...

you can see that parentheses around the list of targets are allowed.

For example, if you define x,y = 1,2, all of these are allowed and have the same effect:

del x,y
del (x,y)
del (x),[y]del[x,(y)]del ([x], (y))