How to pick certain elements of x-tuple returned by a function?
Question: I am a newbie to Python. Consider the function `str.partition()` which returns
a 3-tuple. If I am interested in only elements 0 and 2 of this tuple, what is
the best way to pick only certain elements out of such a tuple?

I can currently do either:

    
    
    # Introduces "part1" variable, which is useless
    (part0, part1, part2) = str.partition(' ')
    

Or:

    
    
    # Multiple calls and statements, again redundancy
    part0 = str.partition(' ')[0]
    part2 = str.partition(' ')[2]
    

I would like to be able to do _something_ like this, but cannot:

    
    
    (part0, , part2) = str.partition(' ')
    # Or:
    (part0, part2)   = str.partition(' ')[0, 2]
    


Answer: Underscore is often used as a name for stuff you do not need, so something
like this would work:

    
    
    part0, _, part2 = str.partition(' ')
    

In this particular case, you could do this, but it isn't a pretty solution:

    
    
    part0, part2 = str.partition(' ')[::2]
    

A more esoteric solution:

    
    
    from operator import itemgetter
    part0, part2 = itemgetter(0, 2)(str.partition(' '))
    

