python - Copied variable changes the original?

Question

I have a simple problem in Python that is very very strange.

def estExt(matriz,erro):
    # (1) Determinar o vector X das solu??es
    print ("Matrix after:");
    print(matriz);

    aux=matriz;
    x=solucoes(aux); # IF aux is a copy of matrix, why the matrix is changed??

    print ("Matrix before: ");
    print(matriz)

...

As you see below, the matrix matriz is changed in spite of the fact that aux is the one being changed by the function solucoes().

Matrix before:
[[7, 8, 9, 24], [8, 9, 10, 27], [9, 10, 8, 27]]

Matrix after:
[[7, 8, 9, 24], [0.0, -0.14285714285714235, -0.2857142857142847, -0.42857142857142705], [0.0, 0.0, -3.0, -3.0000000000000018]]

Answer 1

The line

aux=matriz;

Does not make a copy of matriz, it merely creates a new reference to matriz named aux. You probably want

aux=matriz[:]

Which will make a copy, assuming matriz is a simple data structure. If it is more complex, you should probably use copy.deepcopy

aux = copy.deepcopy(matriz)

As an aside, you don't need semi-colons after each statement, python doesn't use them as EOL markers.