Global name 'camera' is not defined in python

Question

In this script :-

camera_port = 0
ramp_frames = 400
camera = cv2.VideoCapture(camera_port) 
def get_image():
  global camera
  retval, im = camera.read()
  return im

def Camera():
    global camera
    for i in xrange(ramp_frames):
     temp = get_image()
    print("Taking image...")
    camera_capture = get_image()
    file = "opencv.png"
    cv2.imwrite(file, camera_capture)
    del(camera)

def Sendmail():
    loop_value = 1
    while loop_value==1:
        try:
            urllib2.urlopen("https://google.com")
        except urllib2.URLError, e:
            print "Network currently down." 
            sleep(20)
        else:
            print "Up and running." 
            loop_value = 0
def Email():
    loop_value = 2
    while loop_value==2:
        try:
            Camera()
            Sendmail()
            yag = yagmail.SMTP('email',   'pass')
            yag.send('[email protected]', subject = "This is    opencv.png", contents = 'opencv.png')
            print "done"
        except smtplib.SMTPAuthenticationError:
            print 'Retrying in 30 seconds'
            sleep(30)
        else:
            print 'Sent!'
            sleep(20)
            loop_value = 2

I get this error :-

What am I doing wrong. I have even defined camera globally, that to TWICE. Can somone please point out my mistake in the code? I use python 2.7 with Opencv module

File "C:\Python27\Scripts\Servers.py", line 22, in Camera
    temp = get_image()
  File "C:\Python27\Scripts\Servers.py", line 16, in get_image
    retval, im = camera.read()
NameError: global name 'camera' is not defined

UPDATE Look above for updated code

Answer 1

You need to have defined camera outside the scope of your methods as well. What the global keyword does is tell Python that you will modify that variable which you defined externally. If you haven't, you get this error.

EDIT

I didn't notice that you had already declared camera externally. However, you delete the variable inside the Camera() method, which has pretty much the same effect when you try to modify the variable again.

EDIT 2

Now that I can see what your code really does and what you intend to do, I don't think you should be working with a global camera at all, but pass it as parameter instead. This should work:

camera_port = 0
ramp_frames = 400

def get_image(camera):
    retval, im = camera.read()
    return im

def Camera(camera):
    for i in xrange(ramp_frames):
        temp = get_image(camera)
    print("Taking image...")
    camera_capture = get_image(camera)
    file = "opencv.png"
    cv2.imwrite(file, camera_capture)

def Sendmail():
    loop_value = 1
    while loop_value==1:
        try:
            urllib2.urlopen("https://google.com")
        except urllib2.URLError, e:
            print "Network currently down." 
            sleep(20)
        else:
            print "Up and running." 
            loop_value = 0

def Email():
    loop_value = 2
    while loop_value==2:
        try:
            camera = cv2.VideoCapture(camera_port) 
            Camera(camera)
            Sendmail()
            yag = yagmail.SMTP('email',   'pass')
            yag.send('[email protected]', subject = "This is    opencv.png", contents = 'opencv.png')
            print "done"
        except smtplib.SMTPAuthenticationError:
            print 'Retrying in 30 seconds'
            sleep(30)
        else:
            print 'Sent!'
            sleep(20)
            loop_value = 2