On Thu, Dec 8, 2011 at 11:03 AM, Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.pyt...@pearwood.info> wrote: >> It is really important that the scope of a,b,c is limited to the Sum >> function, they must not exisit outside it or inside any other nested >> functions. > > The second part is impossible, because that is not how Python works. > Nested functions in Python can always see variables in their enclosing > scope. If you don't want that behaviour, use another language, or don't > use nested functions.
To the OP: By "nested functions", did you mean actual nested functions (those defined inside this function), or simply functions called from this one? This is a nested function, as the term is usually taken to mean: def outer_function(): a = 1 def inner_function(): b = 2 return a+b print(inner_function()) # Prints 3 The inner function has access to all of the outer function's namespace. But if you meant this: def function_1(): b = 2 return a+b def function_2(): a = 1 print(function_1()) then it's quite the other way around - Python never shares variables in this way (this would have function_1 assume that 'a' is a global name, so if it's not, you'll get a run-time NameError). As Steven says, there's no way in Python to hide variables from an actual nested function. But if you just mean a function called from this one, then what you want is the normal behaviour (and if you actually want to share variables, you pass them as arguments). ChrisA -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list