How to allow list append() method to return the new list

list.append is a built-in and therefore cannot be changed. But if you're willing to use something other than append, you could try +:

In [106]: myList = [10,20,30]

In [107]: yourList = myList + [40]

In [108]: print myList
[10, 20, 30]

In [109]: print yourList
[10, 20, 30, 40]

Of course, the downside to this is that a new list is created which takes a lot more time than append

Hope this helps

Don't use append but concatenation instead:

yourList = myList + [40]

This returns a new list; myList will not be affected. If you need to have myList affected as well either use .append() anyway, then assign yourList separately from (a copy of) myList.

In python 3 you may create new list by unpacking old one and adding new element:

a = [1,2,3]
b = [*a,4] # b = [1,2,3,4] 

when you do:

myList + [40]

You actually have 3 lists.