On Nov 2, 3:35 pm, Jim Hendricks <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > This sounds like an issue of terminology. I understand that I don't > declare variables like I would in C or Java, but that they are > implicitly declared via the first assignment. And the define objects > and bind a name to them makes no sense to me. I can only assume that if > I say: my_file = open( ... the "techy" explaination is that the open > function defines a file object and binds the name my_file to it. To me, > it's easier to say that the open function creates a file object and > assigns a reference to the my_file variable. If my_file does not exist, > it is created, if my_file does exist, prior to the assignment, the type > of my_file is checked to ensure type safety. >
Objects have types, names (what you're calling variables) don't. my_file = open ... binds the name 'my_file' to a file object. A subsequent my_file = 7 will bind the name 'my_file' to an int object. No type-checking involved (but neither is there any loss of type safety). James -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
