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accessing and changing module level variable [duplicate]

I've run into a bit of a wall importing modules in a Python script. I'll do my best to describe the error, why I run into it, and why I'm tying this particular approach to solve my problem (which I will describe in a second):
Let's suppose I have a module in which I've defined some utility functions/classes, which refer to entities defined in the namespace into which this auxiliary module will be imported (let "a" be such an entity):
module1:
def f():
print a
And then I have the main program, where "a" is defined, into which I want to import those utilities:
import module1
a=3
module1.f()
Executing the program will trigger the following error:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "Z:\Python\main.py", line 10, in <module>
module1.f()
File "Z:\Python\module1.py", line 3, in f
print a
NameError: global name 'a' is not defined
Similar questions have been asked in the past (two days ago, d'uh) and several solutions have been suggested, however I don't really think these fit my requirements. Here's my particular context:
I'm trying to make a Python program which connects to a MySQL database server and displays/modifies data with a GUI. For cleanliness sake, I've defined the bunch of auxiliary/utility MySQL-related functions in a separate file. However they all have a common variable, which I had originally defined inside the utilities module, and which is the cursor object from MySQLdb module.
I later realised that the cursor object (which is used to communicate with the db server) should be defined in the main module, so that both the main module and anything that is imported into it can access that object.
End result would be something like this:
utilities_module.py:
def utility_1(args):
code which references a variable named "cur"
def utility_n(args):
etcetera
And my main module:
program.py:
import MySQLdb, Tkinter
db=MySQLdb.connect(#blahblah) ; cur=db.cursor() #cur is defined!
from utilities_module import *
And then, as soon as I try to call any of the utilities functions, it triggers the aforementioned "global name not defined" error.
A particular suggestion was to have a "from program import cur" statement in the utilities file, such as this:
utilities_module.py:
from program import cur
#rest of function definitions
program.py:
import Tkinter, MySQLdb
db=MySQLdb.connect(#blahblah) ; cur=db.cursor() #cur is defined!
from utilities_module import *
But that's cyclic import or something like that and, bottom line, it crashes too. So my question is:
How in hell can I make the "cur" object, defined in the main module, visible to those auxiliary functions which are imported into it?
Thanks for your time and my deepest apologies if the solution has been posted elsewhere. I just can't find the answer myself and I've got no more tricks in my book.

Globals in Python are global to a module, not across all modules. (Many people are confused by this, because in, say, C, a global is the same across all implementation files unless you explicitly make it static.)
There are different ways to solve this, depending on your actual use case.
Before even going down this path, ask yourself whether this really needs to be global. Maybe you really want a class, with f as an instance method, rather than just a free function? Then you could do something like this:
import module1
thingy1 = module1.Thingy(a=3)
thingy1.f()
If you really do want a global, but it's just there to be used by module1, set it in that module.
import module1
module1.a=3
module1.f()
On the other hand, if a is shared by a whole lot of modules, put it somewhere else, and have everyone import it:
import shared_stuff
import module1
shared_stuff.a = 3
module1.f()
… and, in module1.py:
import shared_stuff
def f():
print shared_stuff.a
Don't use a from import unless the variable is intended to be a constant. from shared_stuff import a would create a new a variable initialized to whatever shared_stuff.a referred to at the time of the import, and this new a variable would not be affected by assignments to shared_stuff.a.
Or, in the rare case that you really do need it to be truly global everywhere, like a builtin, add it to the builtin module. The exact details differ between Python 2.x and 3.x. In 3.x, it works like this:
import builtins
import module1
builtins.a = 3
module1.f()

As a workaround, you could consider setting environment variables in the outer layer, like this.
main.py:
import os
os.environ['MYVAL'] = str(myintvariable)
mymodule.py:
import os
myval = None
if 'MYVAL' in os.environ:
myval = os.environ['MYVAL']
As an extra precaution, handle the case when MYVAL is not defined inside the module.

This post is just an observation for Python behaviour I encountered. Maybe the advices you read above don't work for you if you made the same thing I did below.
Namely, I have a module which contains global/shared variables (as suggested above):
#sharedstuff.py
globaltimes_randomnode=[]
globalist_randomnode=[]
Then I had the main module which imports the shared stuff with:
import sharedstuff as shared
and some other modules that actually populated these arrays. These are called by the main module. When exiting these other modules I can clearly see that the arrays are populated. But when reading them back in the main module, they were empty. This was rather strange for me (well, I am new to Python). However, when I change the way I import the sharedstuff.py in the main module to:
from globals import *
it worked (the arrays were populated).
Just sayin'

A function uses the globals of the module it's defined in. Instead of setting a = 3, for example, you should be setting module1.a = 3. So, if you want cur available as a global in utilities_module, set utilities_module.cur.
A better solution: don't use globals. Pass the variables you need into the functions that need it, or create a class to bundle all the data together, and pass it when initializing the instance.

The easiest solution to this particular problem would have been to add another function within the module that would have stored the cursor in a variable global to the module. Then all the other functions could use it as well.
module1:
cursor = None
def setCursor(cur):
global cursor
cursor = cur
def method(some, args):
global cursor
do_stuff(cursor, some, args)
main program:
import module1
cursor = get_a_cursor()
module1.setCursor(cursor)
module1.method()

Since globals are module specific, you can add the following function to all imported modules, and then use it to:
Add singular variables (in dictionary format) as globals for those
Transfer your main module globals to it
.
addglobals = lambda x: globals().update(x)
Then all you need to pass on current globals is:
import module
module.addglobals(globals())

Since I haven't seen it in the answers above, I thought I would add my simple workaround, which is just to add a global_dict argument to the function requiring the calling module's globals, and then pass the dict into the function when calling; e.g:
# external_module
def imported_function(global_dict=None):
print(global_dict["a"])
# calling_module
a = 12
from external_module import imported_function
imported_function(global_dict=globals())
>>> 12

The OOP way of doing this would be to make your module a class instead of a set of unbound methods. Then you could use __init__ or a setter method to set the variables from the caller for use in the module methods.

Update
To test the theory, I created a module and put it on pypi. It all worked perfectly.
pip install superglobals
Short answer
This works fine in Python 2 or 3:
import inspect
def superglobals():
_globals = dict(inspect.getmembers(
inspect.stack()[len(inspect.stack()) - 1][0]))["f_globals"]
return _globals
save as superglobals.py and employ in another module thusly:
from superglobals import *
superglobals()['var'] = value
Extended Answer
You can add some extra functions to make things more attractive.
def superglobals():
_globals = dict(inspect.getmembers(
inspect.stack()[len(inspect.stack()) - 1][0]))["f_globals"]
return _globals
def getglobal(key, default=None):
"""
getglobal(key[, default]) -> value
Return the value for key if key is in the global dictionary, else default.
"""
_globals = dict(inspect.getmembers(
inspect.stack()[len(inspect.stack()) - 1][0]))["f_globals"]
return _globals.get(key, default)
def setglobal(key, value):
_globals = superglobals()
_globals[key] = value
def defaultglobal(key, value):
"""
defaultglobal(key, value)
Set the value of global variable `key` if it is not otherwise st
"""
_globals = superglobals()
if key not in _globals:
_globals[key] = value
Then use thusly:
from superglobals import *
setglobal('test', 123)
defaultglobal('test', 456)
assert(getglobal('test') == 123)
Justification
The "python purity league" answers that litter this question are perfectly correct, but in some environments (such as IDAPython) which is basically single threaded with a large globally instantiated API, it just doesn't matter as much.
It's still bad form and a bad practice to encourage, but sometimes it's just easier. Especially when the code you are writing isn't going to have a very long life.

Understanding exec statement with a globals parameter

I have a python script that I'm picking up from someone else and am trying to understand what's happening when it runs.
I have a file in my current directory called __version__.py that contains the following line:
__version__ = "1.0"
In a separate script I have the following code:
import os
gdict = {}
curr_dir = os.path.abspath(os.path.dirname(__file__))
with open(os.path.join(curr_dir, "__version__.py")) as f:
exec(f.read(), gdict)
I'm puzzled about what's going on with the exec statement. My understanding from reading the documentation is that gdict is there to specify which global functions are available to the exec() function, and since it's empty there shouldn't be anything available to exec() beyond the built-in functions. I had thought that gdict would remain empty, but when I run this code and then look at gdict.keys() I see:
dict_keys(['__builtins__', '__version__'])
I understand that the f.read() is creating a global variable called "__version__" with a value of "1.0", but how is gdict being populated?

gdict from your program changes because python dictionaries are mutable. All available builtins will be added to the globals dict when you run exec(f.read(), gdict) and this is reflected when you view gdict.keys()

executing python code from string loaded into a module

I found the following code snippet that I can't seem to make work for my scenario (or any scenario at all):
def load(code):
# Delete all local variables
globals()['code'] = code
del locals()['code']
# Run the code
exec(globals()['code'])
# Delete any global variables we've added
del globals()['load']
del globals()['code']
# Copy k so we can use it
if 'k' in locals():
globals()['k'] = locals()['k']
del locals()['k']
# Copy the rest of the variables
for k in locals().keys():
globals()[k] = locals()[k]
I created a file called "dynamic_module" and put this code in it, which I then used to try to execute the following code which is a placeholder for some dynamically created string I would like to execute.
import random
import datetime
class MyClass(object):
def main(self, a, b):
r = random.Random(datetime.datetime.now().microsecond)
a = r.randint(a, b)
return a
Then I tried executing the following:
import dynamic_module
dynamic_module.load(code_string)
return_value = dynamic_module.MyClass().main(1,100)
When this runs it should return a random number between 1 and 100. However, I can't seem to get the initial snippet I found to work for even the simplest of code strings. I think part of my confusion in doing this is that I may misunderstand how globals and locals work and therefore how to properly fix the problems I'm encountering. I need the code string to use its own imports and variables and not have access to the ones where it is being run from, which is the reason I am going through this somewhat over-complicated method.

You should not be using the code you found. It is has several big problems, not least that most of it doesn't actually do anything (locals() is a proxy, deleting from it has no effect on the actual locals, it puts any code you execute in the same shared globals, etc.)
Use the accepted answer in that post instead; recast as a function that becomes:
import sys, imp
def load_module_from_string(code, name='dynamic_module')
module = imp.new_module(name)
exec(code, mymodule.__dict__)
return module
then just use that:
dynamic_module = load_module_from_string(code_string)
return_value = dynamic_module.MyClass().main(1, 100)
The function produces a new, clean module object.

In general, this is not how you should dynamically import and use external modules. You should be using __import__ within your function to do this. Here's a simple example that worked for me:
plt = __import__('matplotlib.pyplot', fromlist = ['plt'])
plt.plot(np.arange(5), np.arange(5))
plt.show()
I imagine that for your specific application (loading from code string) it would be much easier to save the dynamically generated code string to a file (in a folder containing an __init__.py file) and then to call it using __import__. Then you could access all variables and functions of the code as parts of the imported module.
Unless I'm missing something?

Calling a function from a dictionary, dictionary in imported settings file

So I have a dictionary with a bunch of names that I use to call functions. It works fine, but I prefer to put it in my settings file. If I do so, though, I will get errors from the settings file saying that there are no functions by that name(even though I'm not calling them at the time). Any workarounds?
def callfunct(id, time):
#stuff here
def callotherfunct(id, time):
#stuff here
dict = {"blah blah": callfunct, "blah blah blah": callfunct, "otherblah": callotherfunct}
dict[str(nameid)](id, time)
Hope this makes sense. Also open to other ideas, but basically I have about 50 iterations of these definitions and unique names that are passed by nameid that need to call specific functions, so that's why I do it the way I do, so that I can add new names quickly. It would obviously be even quicker if I could get the dictionary into the settings file seamlessly as well.

If you try
def f_one(id, time):
pass
def f_two(id, time):
pass
d = {"blah blah":"f_one", "blah blah blah":"f_one", "otherblah","f_two"
locals()[d[str(nameid)]](id, time)
(replacing the dictionary initialization with just loading the config file with the string name of the functions you want to call), does that work?
If not, there needs to be a little more info: What does the config file look like, and how are you loading it?
I'm guessing the reason that the config file part isn't working is that you're trying to reference the functions directly from the config file, which shouldn't work. This is using whatever's stored in the config file and looking it up in the locals() dictionary (if you're in a function, you'll have to use globals() instead)

You could initialise the dictionary with the looked up function only when you attempt to access it:
d = {}
d.setdefault('func1', globals()['func1'])()

Python: importing through function to main namespace

(Important: See update below.)
I'm trying to write a function, import_something, that will important certain modules. (It doesn't matter which for this question.) The thing is, I would like those modules to be imported at the level from which the function is called. For example:
import_something() # Let's say this imports my_module
my_module.do_stuff() #
Is this possible?
Update:
Sorry, my original phrasing and example were misleading. I'll try to explain my entire problem. What I have is a package, which has inside it some modules and packages. In its __init__.py I want to import all the modules and packages. So somewhere else in the program, I import the entire package, and iterate over the modules/packages it has imported.
(Why? The package is called crunchers, and inside it there are defined all kinds of crunchers, like CruncherThread, CruncherProcess, and in the future perhaps MicroThreadCruncher. I want the crunchers package to automatically have all the crunchers that are placed in it, so later in the program when I use crunchers I know it can tell exactly which crunchers I have defined.)
I know I can solve this if I avoid using functions at all, and do all imports on the main level with for loops and such. But it's ugly and I want to see if I can avoid it.
If anything more is unclear, please ask in comments.

Functions have the ability to return something to where they were called. Its called their return value :p
def import_something():
# decide what to import
# ...
mod = __import__( something )
return mod
my_module = import_something()
my_module.do_stuff()
good style, no hassle.
About your update, I think adding something like this to you __init__.py does what you want:
import os
# make a list of all .py files in the same dir that dont start with _
__all__ = installed = [ name for (name,ext) in ( os.path.splitext(fn) for fn in os.listdir(os.path.dirname(__file__))) if ext=='.py' and not name.startswith('_') ]
for name in installed:
# import them all
__import__( name, globals(), locals())
somewhere else:
import crunchers
crunchers.installed # all names
crunchers.cruncherA # actual module object, but you can't use it since you don't know the name when you write the code
# turns out the be pretty much the same as the first solution :p
mycruncher = getattr(crunchers, crunchers.installed[0])

You can monkey with the parent frame in CPython to install the modules into the locals for that frame (and only that frame). The downsides are that a) this is really quite hackish and b) sys._getframe() is not guaranteed to exist in other python implementations.
def importer():
f = sys._getframe(1) # Get the parent frame
f.f_locals["some_name"] = __import__(module_name, f.f_globals, f.f_locals)
You still have to install the module into f_locals, since import won't actually do that for you - you just supply the parent frame locals and globals for the proper context.
Then in your calling function you can have:
def foo():
importer() # Magically makes 'some_name' available to the calling function
some_name.some_func()

Are you looking for something like this?
def my_import(*names):
for name in names:
sys._getframe(1).f_locals[name] = __import__(name)
then you can call it like this:
my_import("os", "re")
or
namelist = ["os", "re"]
my_import(*namelist)

According to __import__'s help:
__import__(name, globals={}, locals={}, fromlist=[], level=-1) -> module
Import a module. The globals are only used to determine the context;
they are not modified. ...
So you can simply get the globals of your parent frame and use that for the __import__ call.
def import_something(s):
return __import__(s, sys._getframe(1).f_globals)
Note: Pre-2.6, __import__'s signature differed in that it simply had optional parameters instead of using kwargs. Since globals is the second argument in both cases, the way it's called above works fine. Just something to be aware of if you decided to use any of the other arguments.