How does * operator work in python

Question

I know that it expands function arguments, but if I try something like this in Python 2:

x = [1,2,3]
print *x # SyntaxError: invalid syntax
print [*x] # SyntaxError: invalid syntax

So it appears that I am missing something about what * exactly does?

Answer 1

The * operator, unpacks the elements from a sequence/iterable (for example, list or tuple) as positional arguments to a function

On python2, print is a statement and not a function. So import print function from future, so that you use * operator for unpacking a list elements as arguments

>>> from __future__ import print_function
>>> print (*x)
1 2 3

On python3, print is a function. So you can use * operator straight-away

>>> print (*x)
1 2 3