Recursive function defined within function => NameError

[Martin von Loewis]

Michael Ströder <michael.stroeder at inka.de> writes:

> Can anybody clarify the issue here? I looked in the Language
> Reference and found the hint

You found the right place in the documentation. A function can only
access its own local and the module's global symbols; as a result,
looking for 'fak' gives a NameError.

> Any better solution?

For what problem? Computing the factorial in a local function? Sure:

def func1():

    def fak(n):
        from operator import mul
        if n<=1: return n
        return reduce(mul,range(1,n))

    print fak(6)

func1()

For defining support functions? Make them global, and prefix them with
an underscore:

def _fak(n):
  if n>1:
    return n*_fak(n-1)
  else:
    return n

def func1():
  print _fak(6)

func1()

This will prevent anybody importing your module with 'from foo import
*' to accidently overwrite a name; it also makes sufficiently clear
that this function is not intended for general use.

Regards,
Martin