On Thu, Sep 5, 2013 at 12:40 PM, <jsri...@gmail.com> wrote: > Could someone please paraphrase this statement about variables and functions > in Python? > > I am going through the tutorials on docs.python.org, and I came across this > excerpt from http://docs.python.org/3/tutorial/controlflow.html: > > "The execution of a function introduces a new symbol table used for the local > variables of the function. More precisely, all variable assignments in a > function store the value in the local symbol table; whereas variable > references first look in the local symbol table, then in the local symbol > tables of enclosing functions, then in the global symbol table, and finally > in the table of built-in names. Thus, global variables cannot be directly > assigned a value within a function (unless named in a global statement), > although they may be referenced. > > "The actual parameters (arguments) to a function call are introduced in the > local symbol table of the called function when it is called; thus, arguments > are passed using call by value (where the value is always an object > reference, not the value of the object). [1] When a function calls another > function, a new local symbol table is created for that call." > > Even as a professional programmer, I'm not really able to follow this. It > appears to be self-contradictory, amgiguous, incomplete, and possessive of > logical missteps. The problem with looking for this information elsewhere is > that it's not going to be all in one spot like this half the time, and it's > not going to be readily searchable on Google without more knowledge of what > it's referring to. However this looks like something that's too important to > overlook. > > I can tell it's referring to things like scope, pass-by-value, references, > probably the call stack, etc., but it is written extremely poorly. > Translation please? Thanks! > -- > https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Nearly everyone gets confused by this initially. You should google python namespaces -- Joel Goldstick http://joelgoldstick.com -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
