How can I share a variable between functions in Python?

Question

I have two functions, fun1 and fun2, which take as inputs a string and a number, respectively. They also both get the same variable, a, as input. This is the code:

a = ['A','X','R','N','L']

def fun1(string,vect):
    out = []
    for letter in vect:
        out. append(string+letter)
    return out

def fun2(number,vect):
    out = []
    for letter in vect:
        out.append(str(number)+letter)
    return out

x = fun1('Hello ',a)
y = fun2(2,a)

The functions perform some nonsense operations. My goal would be to rewrite the code in such a way that the variable a is shared between the functions, so that they do not take it as input anymore.

One way to remove variable a as input would be by defining it within the functions themselves, but unfortunately that is not very elegant. What is a possible way to reach my goal?

The functions should operate in the same way, but the input arguments should only be the string and the number (fun1(string), fun2(number)).

Answer 1

Object-oriented programming helps here:

class MyClass(object):
    def __init__(self):
        self.a = ['A','X','R','N','L']  # Shared instance member :D

    def fun1(self, string):
        out = []
        for letter in self.a:
            out.append(string+letter)
        return out

    def fun2(self, number):
        out = []
        for letter in self.a:
            out.append(str(number)+letter)
        return out

a = MyClass()
x = a.fun1('Hello ')
y = a.fun2(2)

Answer 2

An alternative to using classes: You can use the global keyword to use variables that lie outside the function.

a = 5
def func():
    global a
    return a+1

print (func())

This will print 6.

But global variables should be avoided as much as possible.