Using a variable in a try,catch,finally statement without declaring it outside

Question

I'm pretty new to Python, here is some code I am looking at:

try:     connection = getConnection(database)     cursor = connection.cursor()     cursor.execute("some query") except:     log.error("Problem.")     raise finally:     cursor.close()     connection.close() 

Is that being cleaned up properly? In other languages I have written in, I am used to doing something like this:

connection = None cursor = None  try:     connection = getConnection(database)     cursor = connection.cursor()     cursor.execute("some query") except:     log.error("Problem.")     raise finally:     if cursor is not None:         cursor.close()     if connection is not None:             connection.close() 

Answer 1

Python does not have block scope. Anything defined inside the try block will be available outside.

That said, you would still have a problem: if it is the getConnection() call that raises the error, cursor will be undefined, so the reference in the finally block will error.