Peter Hansen wrote:
The main way I use this is in some sort of a "const" module, which provides access to a large set of constant information. In other words, in contrast to what you had in mind when you wrote the above, I'm dealing with neither "variables" nor information that _would_ best be put in a dict.
[...]
In general I would say that mucking with globals() like this is probably best restricted to constants like in this case, if at all.
Indeed, for almost every rule, there are exceptions.. Legitimate cases also exist for using eval() and exec, though in general both of those are better avoided. The case you describe does sound like a legitimate use of writing to globals(), with realistic expectations of the costs and benefits
(Actually, in your provided example, I might have const.py parse the header file into a dict named const, and then have my modules use 'from const import const'. But I will admit that the extra complication on import may not be worth the "cleaner" module internals... As always, it's a tradeoff, and each programmer must decide which costs are worth bearing in their particular situation.)
Jeff Shannon Technician/Programmer Credit International
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