Related
Suppose I have a function like:
def foo():
x = 'hello world'
How do I get the function to return x, in such a way that I can use it as the input for another function or use the variable within the body of a program? I tried using return and then using the x variable in another function, but I get a NameError that way.
For the specific case of communicating information between methods in the same class, it is often best to store the information in self. See Passing variables between methods in Python? for details.
def foo():
x = 'hello world'
return x # return 'hello world' would do, too
foo()
print(x) # NameError - x is not defined outside the function
y = foo()
print(y) # this works
x = foo()
print(x) # this also works, and it's a completely different x than that inside
# foo()
z = bar(x) # of course, now you can use x as you want
z = bar(foo()) # but you don't have to
Effectively, there are two ways: directly and indirectly.
The direct way is to return a value from the function, as you tried, and let the calling code use that value. This is normally what you want. The natural, simple, direct, explicit way to get information back from a function is to return it. Broadly speaking, the purpose of a function is to compute a value, and return signifies "this is the value we computed; we are done here".
Directly using return
The main trick here is that return returns a value, not a variable. So return x does not enable the calling code to use x after calling the function, and does not modify any existing value that x had in the context of the call. (That's presumably why you got a NameError.)
After we use return in the function:
def example():
x = 'hello world'
return x
we need to write the calling code to use the return value:
result = example()
print(result)
The other key point here is that a call to a function is an expression, so we can use it the same way that we use, say, the result of an addition. Just as we may say result = 'hello ' + 'world', we may say result = foo(). After that, result is our own, local name for that string, and we can do whatever we want with it.
We can use the same name, x, if we want. Or we can use a different name. The calling code doesn't have to know anything about how the function is written, or what names it uses for things.1
We can use the value directly to call another function: for example, print(foo()).2 We can return the value directly: simply return 'hello world', without assigning to x. (Again: we are returning a value, not a variable.)
The function can only return once each time it is called. return terminates the function - again, we just determined the result of the calculation, so there is no reason to calculate any further. If we want to return multiple pieces of information, therefore, we will need to come up with a single object (in Python, "value" and "object" are effectively synonyms; this doesn't work out so well for some other languages.)
We can make a tuple right on the return line; or we can use a dictionary, a namedtuple (Python 2.6+), a types.simpleNamespace (Python 3.3+), a dataclass (Python 3.7+), or some other class (perhaps even one we write ourselves) to associate names with the values that are being returned; or we can accumulate values from a loop in a list; etc. etc. The possibilities are endless..
On the other hand, the function returns whether you like it or not (unless an exception is raised). If it reaches the end, it will implicitly return the special value None. You may or may not want to do it explicitly instead.
Indirect methods
Other than returning the result back to the caller directly, we can communicate it by modifying some existing object that the caller knows about. There are many ways to do that, but they're all variations on that same theme.
If you want the code to communicate information back this way, please just let it return None - don't also use the return value for something meaningful. That's how the built-in functionality works.
In order to modify that object, the called function also has to know about it, of course. That means, having a name for the object that can be looked up in a current scope. So, let's go through those in order:
Local scope: Modifying a passed-in argument
If one of our parameters is mutable, we can just mutate it, and rely on the caller to examine the change. This is usually not a great idea, because it can be hard to reason about the code. It looks like:
def called(mutable):
mutable.append('world')
def caller():
my_value = ['hello'] # a list with just that string
called(my_value)
# now it contains both strings
If the value is an instance of our own class, we could also assign to an attribute:
class Test:
def __init__(self, value):
self.value = value
def called(mutable):
mutable.value = 'world'
def caller():
test = Test('hello')
called(test)
# now test.value has changed
Assigning to an attribute does not work for built-in types, including object; and it might not work for some classes that explicitly prevent you from doing it.
Local scope: Modifying self, in a method
We already have an example of this above: setting self.value in the Test.__init__ code. This is a special case of modifying a passed-in argument; but it's part of how classes work in Python, and something we're expected to do. Normally, when we do this, the calling won't actually check for changes to self - it will just use the modified object in the next step of the logic. That's what makes it appropriate to write code this way: we're still presenting an interface, so the caller doesn't have to worry about the details.
class Example:
def __init__(self):
self._words = ['hello']
def add_word(self):
self._words.append('world')
def display(self):
print(*self.words)
x = Example()
x.add_word()
x.display()
In the example, calling add_word gave information back to the top-level code - but instead of looking for it, we just go ahead and call display.3
See also: Passing variables between methods in Python?
Enclosing scope
This is a rare special case when using nested functions. There isn't a lot to say here - it works the same way as with the global scope, just using the nonlocal keyword rather than global.4
Global scope: Modifying a global
Generally speaking, it is a bad idea to change anything in the global scope after setting it up in the first place. It makes code harder to reason about, because anything that uses that global (aside from whatever was responsible for the change) now has a "hidden" source of input.
If you still want to do it, the syntax is straightforward:
words = ['hello']
def add_global_word():
words.append('world')
add_global_word() # `words` is changed
Global scope: Assigning to a new or existing global
This is actually a special case of modifying a global. I don't mean that assignment is a kind of modification (it isn't). I mean that when you assign a global name, Python automatically updates a dict that represents the global namespace. You can get that dict with globals(), and you can modify that dict and it will actually impact what global variables exist. (I.e., the return from globals() is the dictionary itself, not a copy.)5
But please don't. That's even worse of an idea than the previous one. If you really need to get the result from your function by assigning to a global variable, use the global keyword to tell Python that the name should be looked up in the global scope:
words = ['hello']
def replace_global_words():
global words
words = ['hello', 'world']
replace_global_words() # `words` is a new list with both words
Global scope: Assigning to or modifying an attribute of the function itself
This is a rare special case, but now that you've seen the other examples, the theory should be clear. In Python, functions are mutable (i.e. you can set attributes on them); and if we define a function at top level, it's in the global namespace. So this is really just modifying a global:
def set_own_words():
set_own_words.words = ['hello', 'world']
set_own_words()
print(*set_own_words.words)
We shouldn't really use this to send information to the caller. It has all the usual problems with globals, and it's even harder to understand. But it can be useful to set a function's attributes from within the function, in order for the function to remember something in between calls. (It's similar to how methods remember things in between calls by modifying self.) The functools standard library does this, for example in the cache implementation.
Builtin scope
This doesn't work. The builtin namespace doesn't contain any mutable objects, and you can't assign new builtin names (they'll go into the global namespace instead).
Some approaches that don't work in Python
Just calculating something before the function ends
In some other programming languages, there is some kind of hidden variable that automatically picks up the result of the last calculation, every time something is calculated; and if you reach the end of a function without returning anything, it gets returned. That doesn't work in Python. If you reach the end without returning anything, your function returns None.
Assigning to the function's name
In some other programming languages, you are allowed (or expected) to assign to a variable with the same name as the function; and at the end of the function, that value is returned. That still doesn't work in Python. If you reach the end without returning anything, your function still returns None.
def broken():
broken = 1
broken()
print(broken + 1) # causes a `TypeError`
It might seem like you can at least use the value that way, if you use the global keyword:
def subtly_broken():
global subtly_broken
subtly_broken = 1
subtly_broken()
print(subtly_broken + 1) # 2
But this, of course, is just a special case of assigning to a global. And there's a big problem with it - the same name can't refer to two things at once. By doing this, the function replaced its own name. So it will fail next time:
def subtly_broken():
global subtly_broken
subtly_broken = 1
subtly_broken()
subtly_broken() # causes a `TypeError`
Assigning to a parameter
Sometimes people expect to be able to assign to one of the function's parameters, and have it affect a variable that was used for the corresponding argument. However, this does not work:
def broken(words):
words = ['hello', 'world']
data = ['hello']
broken(data) # `data` does not change
Just like how Python returns values, not variables, it also passes values, not variables. words is a local name; by definition the calling code doesn't know anything about that namespace.
One of the working methods that we saw is to modify the passed-in list. That works because if the list itself changes, then it changes - it doesn't matter what name is used for it, or what part of the code uses that name. However, assigning a new list to words does not cause the existing list to change. It just makes words start being a name for a different list.
For more information, see How do I pass a variable by reference?.
1 At least, not for getting the value back. If you want to use keyword arguments, you need to know what the keyword names are. But generally, the point of functions is that they're an abstraction; you only need to know about their interface, and you don't need to think about what they're doing internally.
2 In 2.x, print is a statement rather than a function, so this doesn't make an example of calling another function directly. However, print foo() still works with 2.x's print statement, and so does print(foo()) (in this case, the extra parentheses are just ordinary grouping parentheses). Aside from that, 2.7 (the last 2.x version) has been unsupported since the beginning of 2020 - which was nearly a 5 year extension of the normal schedule. But then, this question was originally asked in 2010.
3Again: if the purpose of a method is to update the object, don't also return a value. Some people like to return self so that you can "chain" method calls; but in Python this is considered poor style. If you want that kind of "fluent" interface, then instead of writing methods that update self, write methods that create a new, modified instance of the class.
4 Except, of course, that if we're modifying a value rather than assigning, we don't need either keyword.
5 There's also a locals() that gives you a dict of local variables. However, this cannot be used to make new local variables - the behaviour is undefined in 2.x, and in 3.x the dict is created on the fly and assigning to it has no effect. Some of Python's optimizations depend on the local variables for a function being known ahead of time.
>>> def foo():
return 'hello world'
>>> x = foo()
>>> x
'hello world'
You can use global statement and then achieve what you want without returning value from
the function. For example you can do something like below:
def foo():
global x
x = "hello world"
foo()
print x
The above code will print "hello world".
But please be warned that usage of "global" is not a good idea at all and it is better to avoid usage that is shown in my example.
Also check this related discussion on about usage of global statement in Python.
Suppose I have a function like:
def foo():
x = 'hello world'
How do I get the function to return x, in such a way that I can use it as the input for another function or use the variable within the body of a program? I tried using return and then using the x variable in another function, but I get a NameError that way.
For the specific case of communicating information between methods in the same class, it is often best to store the information in self. See Passing variables between methods in Python? for details.
def foo():
x = 'hello world'
return x # return 'hello world' would do, too
foo()
print(x) # NameError - x is not defined outside the function
y = foo()
print(y) # this works
x = foo()
print(x) # this also works, and it's a completely different x than that inside
# foo()
z = bar(x) # of course, now you can use x as you want
z = bar(foo()) # but you don't have to
Effectively, there are two ways: directly and indirectly.
The direct way is to return a value from the function, as you tried, and let the calling code use that value. This is normally what you want. The natural, simple, direct, explicit way to get information back from a function is to return it. Broadly speaking, the purpose of a function is to compute a value, and return signifies "this is the value we computed; we are done here".
Directly using return
The main trick here is that return returns a value, not a variable. So return x does not enable the calling code to use x after calling the function, and does not modify any existing value that x had in the context of the call. (That's presumably why you got a NameError.)
After we use return in the function:
def example():
x = 'hello world'
return x
we need to write the calling code to use the return value:
result = example()
print(result)
The other key point here is that a call to a function is an expression, so we can use it the same way that we use, say, the result of an addition. Just as we may say result = 'hello ' + 'world', we may say result = foo(). After that, result is our own, local name for that string, and we can do whatever we want with it.
We can use the same name, x, if we want. Or we can use a different name. The calling code doesn't have to know anything about how the function is written, or what names it uses for things.1
We can use the value directly to call another function: for example, print(foo()).2 We can return the value directly: simply return 'hello world', without assigning to x. (Again: we are returning a value, not a variable.)
The function can only return once each time it is called. return terminates the function - again, we just determined the result of the calculation, so there is no reason to calculate any further. If we want to return multiple pieces of information, therefore, we will need to come up with a single object (in Python, "value" and "object" are effectively synonyms; this doesn't work out so well for some other languages.)
We can make a tuple right on the return line; or we can use a dictionary, a namedtuple (Python 2.6+), a types.simpleNamespace (Python 3.3+), a dataclass (Python 3.7+), or some other class (perhaps even one we write ourselves) to associate names with the values that are being returned; or we can accumulate values from a loop in a list; etc. etc. The possibilities are endless..
On the other hand, the function returns whether you like it or not (unless an exception is raised). If it reaches the end, it will implicitly return the special value None. You may or may not want to do it explicitly instead.
Indirect methods
Other than returning the result back to the caller directly, we can communicate it by modifying some existing object that the caller knows about. There are many ways to do that, but they're all variations on that same theme.
If you want the code to communicate information back this way, please just let it return None - don't also use the return value for something meaningful. That's how the built-in functionality works.
In order to modify that object, the called function also has to know about it, of course. That means, having a name for the object that can be looked up in a current scope. So, let's go through those in order:
Local scope: Modifying a passed-in argument
If one of our parameters is mutable, we can just mutate it, and rely on the caller to examine the change. This is usually not a great idea, because it can be hard to reason about the code. It looks like:
def called(mutable):
mutable.append('world')
def caller():
my_value = ['hello'] # a list with just that string
called(my_value)
# now it contains both strings
If the value is an instance of our own class, we could also assign to an attribute:
class Test:
def __init__(self, value):
self.value = value
def called(mutable):
mutable.value = 'world'
def caller():
test = Test('hello')
called(test)
# now test.value has changed
Assigning to an attribute does not work for built-in types, including object; and it might not work for some classes that explicitly prevent you from doing it.
Local scope: Modifying self, in a method
We already have an example of this above: setting self.value in the Test.__init__ code. This is a special case of modifying a passed-in argument; but it's part of how classes work in Python, and something we're expected to do. Normally, when we do this, the calling won't actually check for changes to self - it will just use the modified object in the next step of the logic. That's what makes it appropriate to write code this way: we're still presenting an interface, so the caller doesn't have to worry about the details.
class Example:
def __init__(self):
self._words = ['hello']
def add_word(self):
self._words.append('world')
def display(self):
print(*self.words)
x = Example()
x.add_word()
x.display()
In the example, calling add_word gave information back to the top-level code - but instead of looking for it, we just go ahead and call display.3
See also: Passing variables between methods in Python?
Enclosing scope
This is a rare special case when using nested functions. There isn't a lot to say here - it works the same way as with the global scope, just using the nonlocal keyword rather than global.4
Global scope: Modifying a global
Generally speaking, it is a bad idea to change anything in the global scope after setting it up in the first place. It makes code harder to reason about, because anything that uses that global (aside from whatever was responsible for the change) now has a "hidden" source of input.
If you still want to do it, the syntax is straightforward:
words = ['hello']
def add_global_word():
words.append('world')
add_global_word() # `words` is changed
Global scope: Assigning to a new or existing global
This is actually a special case of modifying a global. I don't mean that assignment is a kind of modification (it isn't). I mean that when you assign a global name, Python automatically updates a dict that represents the global namespace. You can get that dict with globals(), and you can modify that dict and it will actually impact what global variables exist. (I.e., the return from globals() is the dictionary itself, not a copy.)5
But please don't. That's even worse of an idea than the previous one. If you really need to get the result from your function by assigning to a global variable, use the global keyword to tell Python that the name should be looked up in the global scope:
words = ['hello']
def replace_global_words():
global words
words = ['hello', 'world']
replace_global_words() # `words` is a new list with both words
Global scope: Assigning to or modifying an attribute of the function itself
This is a rare special case, but now that you've seen the other examples, the theory should be clear. In Python, functions are mutable (i.e. you can set attributes on them); and if we define a function at top level, it's in the global namespace. So this is really just modifying a global:
def set_own_words():
set_own_words.words = ['hello', 'world']
set_own_words()
print(*set_own_words.words)
We shouldn't really use this to send information to the caller. It has all the usual problems with globals, and it's even harder to understand. But it can be useful to set a function's attributes from within the function, in order for the function to remember something in between calls. (It's similar to how methods remember things in between calls by modifying self.) The functools standard library does this, for example in the cache implementation.
Builtin scope
This doesn't work. The builtin namespace doesn't contain any mutable objects, and you can't assign new builtin names (they'll go into the global namespace instead).
Some approaches that don't work in Python
Just calculating something before the function ends
In some other programming languages, there is some kind of hidden variable that automatically picks up the result of the last calculation, every time something is calculated; and if you reach the end of a function without returning anything, it gets returned. That doesn't work in Python. If you reach the end without returning anything, your function returns None.
Assigning to the function's name
In some other programming languages, you are allowed (or expected) to assign to a variable with the same name as the function; and at the end of the function, that value is returned. That still doesn't work in Python. If you reach the end without returning anything, your function still returns None.
def broken():
broken = 1
broken()
print(broken + 1) # causes a `TypeError`
It might seem like you can at least use the value that way, if you use the global keyword:
def subtly_broken():
global subtly_broken
subtly_broken = 1
subtly_broken()
print(subtly_broken + 1) # 2
But this, of course, is just a special case of assigning to a global. And there's a big problem with it - the same name can't refer to two things at once. By doing this, the function replaced its own name. So it will fail next time:
def subtly_broken():
global subtly_broken
subtly_broken = 1
subtly_broken()
subtly_broken() # causes a `TypeError`
Assigning to a parameter
Sometimes people expect to be able to assign to one of the function's parameters, and have it affect a variable that was used for the corresponding argument. However, this does not work:
def broken(words):
words = ['hello', 'world']
data = ['hello']
broken(data) # `data` does not change
Just like how Python returns values, not variables, it also passes values, not variables. words is a local name; by definition the calling code doesn't know anything about that namespace.
One of the working methods that we saw is to modify the passed-in list. That works because if the list itself changes, then it changes - it doesn't matter what name is used for it, or what part of the code uses that name. However, assigning a new list to words does not cause the existing list to change. It just makes words start being a name for a different list.
For more information, see How do I pass a variable by reference?.
1 At least, not for getting the value back. If you want to use keyword arguments, you need to know what the keyword names are. But generally, the point of functions is that they're an abstraction; you only need to know about their interface, and you don't need to think about what they're doing internally.
2 In 2.x, print is a statement rather than a function, so this doesn't make an example of calling another function directly. However, print foo() still works with 2.x's print statement, and so does print(foo()) (in this case, the extra parentheses are just ordinary grouping parentheses). Aside from that, 2.7 (the last 2.x version) has been unsupported since the beginning of 2020 - which was nearly a 5 year extension of the normal schedule. But then, this question was originally asked in 2010.
3Again: if the purpose of a method is to update the object, don't also return a value. Some people like to return self so that you can "chain" method calls; but in Python this is considered poor style. If you want that kind of "fluent" interface, then instead of writing methods that update self, write methods that create a new, modified instance of the class.
4 Except, of course, that if we're modifying a value rather than assigning, we don't need either keyword.
5 There's also a locals() that gives you a dict of local variables. However, this cannot be used to make new local variables - the behaviour is undefined in 2.x, and in 3.x the dict is created on the fly and assigning to it has no effect. Some of Python's optimizations depend on the local variables for a function being known ahead of time.
>>> def foo():
return 'hello world'
>>> x = foo()
>>> x
'hello world'
You can use global statement and then achieve what you want without returning value from
the function. For example you can do something like below:
def foo():
global x
x = "hello world"
foo()
print x
The above code will print "hello world".
But please be warned that usage of "global" is not a good idea at all and it is better to avoid usage that is shown in my example.
Also check this related discussion on about usage of global statement in Python.
Suppose I have a function like:
def foo():
x = 'hello world'
How do I get the function to return x, in such a way that I can use it as the input for another function or use the variable within the body of a program? I tried using return and then using the x variable in another function, but I get a NameError that way.
For the specific case of communicating information between methods in the same class, it is often best to store the information in self. See Passing variables between methods in Python? for details.
def foo():
x = 'hello world'
return x # return 'hello world' would do, too
foo()
print(x) # NameError - x is not defined outside the function
y = foo()
print(y) # this works
x = foo()
print(x) # this also works, and it's a completely different x than that inside
# foo()
z = bar(x) # of course, now you can use x as you want
z = bar(foo()) # but you don't have to
Effectively, there are two ways: directly and indirectly.
The direct way is to return a value from the function, as you tried, and let the calling code use that value. This is normally what you want. The natural, simple, direct, explicit way to get information back from a function is to return it. Broadly speaking, the purpose of a function is to compute a value, and return signifies "this is the value we computed; we are done here".
Directly using return
The main trick here is that return returns a value, not a variable. So return x does not enable the calling code to use x after calling the function, and does not modify any existing value that x had in the context of the call. (That's presumably why you got a NameError.)
After we use return in the function:
def example():
x = 'hello world'
return x
we need to write the calling code to use the return value:
result = example()
print(result)
The other key point here is that a call to a function is an expression, so we can use it the same way that we use, say, the result of an addition. Just as we may say result = 'hello ' + 'world', we may say result = foo(). After that, result is our own, local name for that string, and we can do whatever we want with it.
We can use the same name, x, if we want. Or we can use a different name. The calling code doesn't have to know anything about how the function is written, or what names it uses for things.1
We can use the value directly to call another function: for example, print(foo()).2 We can return the value directly: simply return 'hello world', without assigning to x. (Again: we are returning a value, not a variable.)
The function can only return once each time it is called. return terminates the function - again, we just determined the result of the calculation, so there is no reason to calculate any further. If we want to return multiple pieces of information, therefore, we will need to come up with a single object (in Python, "value" and "object" are effectively synonyms; this doesn't work out so well for some other languages.)
We can make a tuple right on the return line; or we can use a dictionary, a namedtuple (Python 2.6+), a types.simpleNamespace (Python 3.3+), a dataclass (Python 3.7+), or some other class (perhaps even one we write ourselves) to associate names with the values that are being returned; or we can accumulate values from a loop in a list; etc. etc. The possibilities are endless..
On the other hand, the function returns whether you like it or not (unless an exception is raised). If it reaches the end, it will implicitly return the special value None. You may or may not want to do it explicitly instead.
Indirect methods
Other than returning the result back to the caller directly, we can communicate it by modifying some existing object that the caller knows about. There are many ways to do that, but they're all variations on that same theme.
If you want the code to communicate information back this way, please just let it return None - don't also use the return value for something meaningful. That's how the built-in functionality works.
In order to modify that object, the called function also has to know about it, of course. That means, having a name for the object that can be looked up in a current scope. So, let's go through those in order:
Local scope: Modifying a passed-in argument
If one of our parameters is mutable, we can just mutate it, and rely on the caller to examine the change. This is usually not a great idea, because it can be hard to reason about the code. It looks like:
def called(mutable):
mutable.append('world')
def caller():
my_value = ['hello'] # a list with just that string
called(my_value)
# now it contains both strings
If the value is an instance of our own class, we could also assign to an attribute:
class Test:
def __init__(self, value):
self.value = value
def called(mutable):
mutable.value = 'world'
def caller():
test = Test('hello')
called(test)
# now test.value has changed
Assigning to an attribute does not work for built-in types, including object; and it might not work for some classes that explicitly prevent you from doing it.
Local scope: Modifying self, in a method
We already have an example of this above: setting self.value in the Test.__init__ code. This is a special case of modifying a passed-in argument; but it's part of how classes work in Python, and something we're expected to do. Normally, when we do this, the calling won't actually check for changes to self - it will just use the modified object in the next step of the logic. That's what makes it appropriate to write code this way: we're still presenting an interface, so the caller doesn't have to worry about the details.
class Example:
def __init__(self):
self._words = ['hello']
def add_word(self):
self._words.append('world')
def display(self):
print(*self.words)
x = Example()
x.add_word()
x.display()
In the example, calling add_word gave information back to the top-level code - but instead of looking for it, we just go ahead and call display.3
See also: Passing variables between methods in Python?
Enclosing scope
This is a rare special case when using nested functions. There isn't a lot to say here - it works the same way as with the global scope, just using the nonlocal keyword rather than global.4
Global scope: Modifying a global
Generally speaking, it is a bad idea to change anything in the global scope after setting it up in the first place. It makes code harder to reason about, because anything that uses that global (aside from whatever was responsible for the change) now has a "hidden" source of input.
If you still want to do it, the syntax is straightforward:
words = ['hello']
def add_global_word():
words.append('world')
add_global_word() # `words` is changed
Global scope: Assigning to a new or existing global
This is actually a special case of modifying a global. I don't mean that assignment is a kind of modification (it isn't). I mean that when you assign a global name, Python automatically updates a dict that represents the global namespace. You can get that dict with globals(), and you can modify that dict and it will actually impact what global variables exist. (I.e., the return from globals() is the dictionary itself, not a copy.)5
But please don't. That's even worse of an idea than the previous one. If you really need to get the result from your function by assigning to a global variable, use the global keyword to tell Python that the name should be looked up in the global scope:
words = ['hello']
def replace_global_words():
global words
words = ['hello', 'world']
replace_global_words() # `words` is a new list with both words
Global scope: Assigning to or modifying an attribute of the function itself
This is a rare special case, but now that you've seen the other examples, the theory should be clear. In Python, functions are mutable (i.e. you can set attributes on them); and if we define a function at top level, it's in the global namespace. So this is really just modifying a global:
def set_own_words():
set_own_words.words = ['hello', 'world']
set_own_words()
print(*set_own_words.words)
We shouldn't really use this to send information to the caller. It has all the usual problems with globals, and it's even harder to understand. But it can be useful to set a function's attributes from within the function, in order for the function to remember something in between calls. (It's similar to how methods remember things in between calls by modifying self.) The functools standard library does this, for example in the cache implementation.
Builtin scope
This doesn't work. The builtin namespace doesn't contain any mutable objects, and you can't assign new builtin names (they'll go into the global namespace instead).
Some approaches that don't work in Python
Just calculating something before the function ends
In some other programming languages, there is some kind of hidden variable that automatically picks up the result of the last calculation, every time something is calculated; and if you reach the end of a function without returning anything, it gets returned. That doesn't work in Python. If you reach the end without returning anything, your function returns None.
Assigning to the function's name
In some other programming languages, you are allowed (or expected) to assign to a variable with the same name as the function; and at the end of the function, that value is returned. That still doesn't work in Python. If you reach the end without returning anything, your function still returns None.
def broken():
broken = 1
broken()
print(broken + 1) # causes a `TypeError`
It might seem like you can at least use the value that way, if you use the global keyword:
def subtly_broken():
global subtly_broken
subtly_broken = 1
subtly_broken()
print(subtly_broken + 1) # 2
But this, of course, is just a special case of assigning to a global. And there's a big problem with it - the same name can't refer to two things at once. By doing this, the function replaced its own name. So it will fail next time:
def subtly_broken():
global subtly_broken
subtly_broken = 1
subtly_broken()
subtly_broken() # causes a `TypeError`
Assigning to a parameter
Sometimes people expect to be able to assign to one of the function's parameters, and have it affect a variable that was used for the corresponding argument. However, this does not work:
def broken(words):
words = ['hello', 'world']
data = ['hello']
broken(data) # `data` does not change
Just like how Python returns values, not variables, it also passes values, not variables. words is a local name; by definition the calling code doesn't know anything about that namespace.
One of the working methods that we saw is to modify the passed-in list. That works because if the list itself changes, then it changes - it doesn't matter what name is used for it, or what part of the code uses that name. However, assigning a new list to words does not cause the existing list to change. It just makes words start being a name for a different list.
For more information, see How do I pass a variable by reference?.
1 At least, not for getting the value back. If you want to use keyword arguments, you need to know what the keyword names are. But generally, the point of functions is that they're an abstraction; you only need to know about their interface, and you don't need to think about what they're doing internally.
2 In 2.x, print is a statement rather than a function, so this doesn't make an example of calling another function directly. However, print foo() still works with 2.x's print statement, and so does print(foo()) (in this case, the extra parentheses are just ordinary grouping parentheses). Aside from that, 2.7 (the last 2.x version) has been unsupported since the beginning of 2020 - which was nearly a 5 year extension of the normal schedule. But then, this question was originally asked in 2010.
3Again: if the purpose of a method is to update the object, don't also return a value. Some people like to return self so that you can "chain" method calls; but in Python this is considered poor style. If you want that kind of "fluent" interface, then instead of writing methods that update self, write methods that create a new, modified instance of the class.
4 Except, of course, that if we're modifying a value rather than assigning, we don't need either keyword.
5 There's also a locals() that gives you a dict of local variables. However, this cannot be used to make new local variables - the behaviour is undefined in 2.x, and in 3.x the dict is created on the fly and assigning to it has no effect. Some of Python's optimizations depend on the local variables for a function being known ahead of time.
>>> def foo():
return 'hello world'
>>> x = foo()
>>> x
'hello world'
You can use global statement and then achieve what you want without returning value from
the function. For example you can do something like below:
def foo():
global x
x = "hello world"
foo()
print x
The above code will print "hello world".
But please be warned that usage of "global" is not a good idea at all and it is better to avoid usage that is shown in my example.
Also check this related discussion on about usage of global statement in Python.
I am trying to access a particular variable that is defined in a function in python module. I was able to get to the variable name(using inspect.getmembers()) function, I was able to extract all variables that are defined in the function of interest in the (co_varnames) attribute. How do I get the value assigned to the variable ? Here is the sample code:-
File 1:- input.py
class foo(self):
def some_fun():
some_var='abc'
File 2:- sample.py
imported_module = importlib.import_module(input)
all_varnames = inspect.getmembers(imported_module)
-->> need value of all_varnames['some_var']
You don't in that context.
Local variables are only present during the execution of the function, that is between it has been called and returned. Your only possibility would be to do that in a function that the function calles (or if it's a generator during iteration).
Anyhow, if you do it in that way it will still be non-valid again after the function has returned.
Thanks for all the comments and suggestions. #Thomas Wagenaar.#skyking.
This is what I finally ended up doing that, I defined the variable like this inside the function:-
def testMethod(self):
self.myvar = {'a':1,'b':2}
Then using a inspect module and getattr(), I could instantiate the class, call this testMethod(which failed with exception), but got to a point where the variable was initialized and then just read the variable. I dont know if the solution is "correct" way of doing things in python, but this little hack worked for me.
is it possible to add a local varible to a function, just before calling it ? if yes how ?
EDIT:REASON
i noticed that all my views in django are using
render_to_response(template_name,locals())
now i created a middleware and i wanted to add one more local variable using the
def process_view():
method of it .so that i don't have to modify the views .
The local scope for a function does not exist until the function is called, so it's not possible to do this. You could do this for a closure, but the next person to have to maintain the code would hunt you down and kill you.
Although I also think it is pretty useless, I thought that you may enclose the function in either a 'with' statement or another function, like the code below. Of course, this approach can be accomplished directly within the function of interest. In fact, you are adding the local variable 'during' the function declaration. See if this fits your needs!
#!/usr/bin/python
def my_funct(_local):
"""My function of interest
"""
print "Local argument was %s" % str(_local)
return "Finished"
def localize(fct, local_var):
"""
"""
return fct(_local = local_var)
## Use function to 'localize' variable
localize(my_funct, local_var="LOCAL_VARIABLE")
## Same effect without supplementary function :
my_funct(_local="LOCAL_VARIABLE")
try:
print local_var
except:
print "No such global variable"
Just some thoughts :)
Cheers
So if you’re one of those lazy
programmers and you like keeping code
particularly concise, you can take
advantage of a built-in Python
function called locals(). It returns a
dictionary mapping all local variable
names to their values, where “local”
means all variables that have been
defined within the current scope.
source
It is a trick in order to not have to explicitly list all of the variables you need to pass in to the function. In this case, you need to explicitly state a variable to pass in. Therefore, you should not be using locals() in the calls you are making in your middle-ware, as the trick was not designed to be used like that.
i mangaged to do that using decorators.