[New-bugs-announce] [issue1888] strange 'global'

[Lee June]

New submission from Lee June:

hi, all. my friend found a strange behave with 'global', I posted it
in the 'python-list at python.org' as this:
[quote]
why the following 2 prg give different results? a.py is ok, but b.py
is 'undefiend a'
I am using Python 2.5.1 (r251:54863, Apr 18 2007, 08:51:08) [MSC
v.1310 32 bit (Intel)] on win32
#a.py
def run():
    if 1==2:                # note, it always False
        global a
    a=1

run()
a

#b.py
def run():
      a=1

run()
a
[/quote]

I believe that is bug which breaks the consistency of python syntax and
common english langauge sense- just like we can do '1>None' in 
python2.x,
but not in python 3.x.
So please fix this bug.
If you do think that is the feature of python and refuse to fix it, 
please
at least mention the craziness in the document. Uhm, maybe I can do the 
later,
but I don't think it is good.


btw, there are some replies(you can search them in the archive), I 
think the
other users met more questions, for example

From: "Gabriel Genellina" <gagsl-py2 at yahoo.com.ar>
To: python-list at python.org
Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2008 18:36:19 -0200
Subject: Re: problem with 'global'
En Mon, 21 Jan 2008 17:36:29 -0200, Duncan Booth
<duncan.booth at invalid.invalid> escribi?:

> Marc 'BlackJack' Rintsch <bj_666 at gmx.net> wrote:
>
>> On Mon, 21 Jan 2008 17:08:46 -0200, Gabriel Genellina wrote:
>>
>>> The future statement is another example, even worse:
>>>
>>> if 0:
>>>      from __future__ import with_statement
>>>
>>> with open("xxx") as f:
>>>      print f
>>
>> In Python >=2.5 it's a compile time error if that import is not the 
very
>> first statement in a source file.
>>
> That doesn't appear to be the case. With Python 2.5.1 the example
> Gabriel quoted will compile and run.

Yes, but now I've noticed that the 0 has some magic. The code above 
works
with 0, 0.0, 0j and ''. Using None, False, () or [] as the condition, 
will
trigger the (expected) syntax error.

Mmm, it may be the peephole optimizer, eliminating the dead branch. This
function has an empty body:

def f():
  if 0: print "0"
  if 0.0: print "0.0"
  if 0j: print "0j"
  if '': print "empty"

py> dis.dis(f)
  5           0 LOAD_CONST               0 (None)
              3 RETURN_VALUE

The other false values tested (False, None, () and []) aren't optimized
out.

--
Gabriel Genellina

----------
components: Interpreter Core
messages: 61482
nosy: oyster
severity: major
status: open
title: strange 'global'
type: behavior
versions: Python 2.4, Python 2.5

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Tracker <report at bugs.python.org>
<http://bugs.python.org/issue1888>
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