python - unpack the first two elements in list/tuple

Question

Is there a way in python to do like this:

a, b, = 1, 3, 4, 5

And then:

>>> a
1
>>> b
3

(The above code doesn't work as it will throw ValueError: too many values to unpack.)

Answer 1

Just to add to Nolen's answer, in Python 3, you can also unpack the rest, like this:

>>> a, b, *rest = 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7
>>> a
1
>>> rest
[3, 4, 5, 6, 7]

Unfortunately, this does not work in Python 2 though.