* symbol use and meaning in python

Question

For a given question below:

a, b, c, d,*e= range (20)

Hence a=0
b=1
c=2
d=3
e=14

Now I know that *e is calculated as (20-a-b-c-d)

I wanted to know why?

And what is *e known as in python is it a normal variable, a pointer or something else?

Answer 1

In that context, * is being used as a packing operator. It is known as an unpacking operator, too. Also ** is a packing/unpacking operator that is used for dictionaries.

Here is a pretty good tutorial on the packing/unpacking operators:
https://geekflare.com/JUMP_LINK__&&__python__&&__JUMP_LINK-unpacking-operators/