Python Warts

#!/usr/bin/python

i=1
def f():
	print "i=%s" % i
	i = i + 1 

f()

This program fails due to a scoping error:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "function_scope.py", line 8, in ?
    f()
  File "function_scope.py", line 5, in f
    print "i=%s" % i
UnboundLocalError: local variable 'i' referenced before assignment

Python has an unusual scoping system, where functions are pre-scanned for assignments before they are executed. Any variable which gets assigned is assumed to be local unless explicitly declared global.

This has two undesirable effects:

• It confuses users, since the same sort of code would work in almost any other language. It's not intuitive to need to define parent variables as "global" in order to assign a value to them.
• It forces the use of kludges in order to access parent variables which are not global. Basically, you must put the parent data into a list or a hash, in order to trick the python interpreter into thinking you are not assigning a value to it.