On 8/28/2011 10:04 AM, Thomas Jollans wrote:
This does not do what you'd like it to do. But let's assume that, it
did, that Python, when encountering a function definition inside a
function, "froze" the values of nonlocal variables used in the new
function, from the point of view of that function — that *might* be more
intuitive, at least in certain situations. However, what if you wanted a
closure to access a nonlocal variable that changes - acting differently
depending on what has since happened in the parent function.
That may not be as common, but it is a perfectly plausible situation,
and the hack required to support that behaviour in a Python that acts as
you had expected it to, a surrogate namespace using a class, list, or
dict, is infinitely more cryptic and ugly than the default-parametre hack.
Or, what if the nonlocal name is not even defined when the closure is.
>>> def f():
def g(): print(a)
a = 3
g()
>>> f()
3
Note that global names also do not have to be defined when a function
using them is compiled. The current situation is that nonlocal and
global names are treated the same way. This makes normal and nested
functions as much the same as possible. This is intentional. It would be
extremely disconcerting if moving code that contains a def into or out
of a wrapping function radically changed its behavior more than is
absolutely necessary.
--
Terry Jan Reedy
--
http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
