assigning print function to variable

Question

For the following code, it seems to me that we are assigning the print function to the variable, spam.

spam = print('Hello!')

I'm wondering why doesn't calling spam, print out "Hello!"?

Answer 1

Because spam isn't a function, it's the result of calling the function print with the argument 'Hello!', which is None, of type NoneType.

If you want to assign that expression to a variable, then you can use a lambda:

l = lambda: print('Hello!') # Doesn't actually call print
l() # 1. Prints 'Hello!'
l() # 2. Prints 'Hello!'
l() # 3. Prints 'Hello!'