title: Python star unpacking for version 2.7
body: <p>As mentioned <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/a/431959/386279">here</a>, you can use the star for unpacking an unknown number of variables (like in functions), but only in python 3:</p>
  
  <pre><code>&gt;&gt;&gt; a, *b = (1, 2, 3)
  &gt;&gt;&gt; b
  [2, 3]
  &gt;&gt;&gt; a, *b = (1,)
  &gt;&gt;&gt; b
  []
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>In python 2.7, the best I can come up with is (not terrible, but annoying):</p>
  
  <pre><code>c = (1, 2, 3)
  a, b = c[0], c[1:] if len(c) &gt; 1 else []
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Is there a way to import this from __future__ like division, or will I need my own function to do unknown-length unpacking in python 2.7?</p>