Recursive function returning a list

Hello!

I have got a Python "Device" Object which has got a attribute (list) called children which my contain several other "Device" objects. I implemented it this way in order to achieve a kind of parent/child relationship.

Now I would like to get all children of a given "Device" object and thought that it would be the best way to use recursive function.

This is what I got so far:

def getAllChildren(self, children=[]):
if self.children:
children.extend(self.children)
for child in self.children:
child.getAllChildren(children)
return children

Unfortunately, it doesn't work like expected since the default parameter children=[] is evaluated only once. That's why the children list becomes larger and larger after calling the method several times but I can't think of another possibility.

Do you have any ideas?
.

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