I am trying to change a variable further down the program. I have a global variable declared at the start of the program and I want to change the variable in different functions down the program. I can do this by declaring the variable inside the function again but I would like to know is there a better way of doing this. Some test code is below to explain what I mean.
ID = 'No'
project = ("Yep"+ID) # ID added with 'No' value which I later want to change
def pro():
ID = "YES"
print ID
def pro1(ID):
# I could declare project again to get this to work, but I would like to avoid this
print project # I want this to print with the new ID number.
if __name__ == '__main__':
pro()
pro1(ID)
Has anyone any ideas, thanks
I have tried the global
variable but when I do this the project variable still prints out YepNo
instead of YepYES
. I want the new variable from the function pro
to change the variable in the project
variable.
In Python, global keyword allows you to modify the variable outside of the current scope.
Functions can access global variables and modify them. Modifying global variables in a function is considered poor programming practice. It is better to send a variable in as a parameter (or have it be returned in the 'return' statement).
Yes, if you decalre a variable inside a loop then that variable is called loop local variable and that variable you can not used outside the loop but if you change the global variable value then it reflect.
You can change the value of a Python global variable by simply assigning it a new value (redeclaring). To delete a variable, use the keyword del . Trying to use a deleted variable will cause an error to fire.
To update global variables you could use
global ID
ID="Yes"
before assigning variable to ID = "YES"
But changing ID will be no effect on project variable, project = ("Yep"+ID)
, because project is already a string
you need to make a function like
def getprojectname(ID):
return project+ID
The whole program may be like this
UPDATE: ... removed
Beware, you're doing it wrong multiple times.
Even though you could use the global statement to change a global (it is discouraged since it's better to use function parameters and return values), that would NOT change other already assigned values. E.g. even though you reassign ID, you would NOT reassign project. Also: your functions return nothing, there's no point in assigning a name to their return value, and it's a BAD habit using an all-uppercase name (ID) for a variable since it's a convention to use them for constants.
This should clarify you the way global works:
myid = ''
project = ("Yep"+myid) #ID added with no value which I later want to change
def mutate_id():
global myid
myid = "YES"
def mutate_project():
global project
project = ("YEP" + myid)
if __name__ == '__main__':
print "myid", myid
print "project ", project
print
mutate_id()
print "myid", myid
print "project ", project
print
mutate_project()
print "myid", myid
print "project ", project
print
But the best way is to do WITHOUT globals:
def get_new_id(old):
return "YES"
def get_new_project(old):
return ("YEP" + myid)
if __name__ == '__main__':
myid = ''
project = ("Yep"+myid)
print "myid", myid
print "project ", project
print
myid = get_new_id(myid)
print "myid", myid
print "project ", project
print
project = get_new_project(project)
print "myid", myid
print "project ", project
print
This will make all code interaction clear, and prevent issues related to global state change.
Use the global
statement.
The global statement is a declaration which holds for the entire current code block. It means that the listed identifiers are to be interpreted as globals.
Example: http://www.rexx.com/~dkuhlman/python_101/python_101.html#SECTION004340000000000000000
P.S.
But don't use global
too often, see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_kZDvwofHY#t=10m45
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