Terry Reedy dixit (2011-09-27, 21:17):
defining a function inside a loop magically causes define-time binding of names in the body.
No, it does not cause such a binding. That is one of the cases the proposition of this or that early-binding syntax comes back repeatedly: def strangish_factorission(): chairs = [] for spam in (1,2,3,4,5): def comfy_chair(fmt): # we naively try to make use of early binding here # but there is no such binding here result = fmt % spam return result chairs.append(comfy_chair) return chairs for comfy_chair in strangish_factorission(): print comfy_chair('%d'), -- will print "5 5 5 5 5", not "1 2 3 4 5". To obtain the latter you need to use eigher default argument hack (which is ugly and unsafe in some situations) or a closure (which for now needs another nested scope, which is even worse in terms of readability). Cheers, *j