I agree with the previous comments that this approach is "bad form".
But if you absolutely *must* modify an enclosing function's variables
with an inner function, all you need to do is remember that a Python
function is an object too, so it can be assigned attributes. ;-)
def outer():
outer.x = 1
print outer.x
def inner():
outer.x = 2
inner()
print outer.x
Josiah Manson wrote:
> I found that I was repeating the same couple of lines over and over in
> a function and decided to split those lines into a nested function
> after copying one too many minor changes all over. The only problem is
> that my little helper function doesn't work! It claims that a variable
> doesn't exist. If I move the variable declaration, it finds the
> variable, but can't change it. Declaring the variable global in the
> nested function doesn't work either.
>
> But, changing the variable in the containing scope is the whole purpose
> of this helper function.
>
> I'm new to python, so there is probably some solution I haven't
> encountered yet. Could you please suggest a nice clean solution? The
> offending code is below. Thanks.
>
> def breakLine(s):
> """Break a string into a list of words and symbols.
> """
> def addTok():
> if len(tok) > 0:
> ls.append(tok)
> tok = ''
>
> ls = []
> tok = ''
> splitters = '?()&|:~,'
> whitespace = ' \t\n\r'
>
> for c in s:
> if c in splitters:
> addTok()
> ls.append(c)
> elif c in whitespace:
> addTok()
> else:
> tok = tok + c
>
> addTok()
>
> return ls
>
> #some tests to make sure it works
> print breakLine('carolina(Prada):cat(X,Y)')
> print breakLine('trouble :bird (X ) &cat ( Y )')
> print breakLine('?trouble')
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