perl: ${$i) , python: ?

[Andrew Dalke]

Richard Jones:
>If you _really_ want to do this, and in my opinion it's yecchy,
>you can. Use locals() to ge a handle on the local variables
>dictionary, and play with that...

The dictionary returned from locals() is not guaranteed to
affect the local variables.

http://www.python.org/doc/current/lib/built-in-funcs.html

] locals()
] Return a dictionary representing the current local symbol
] table. Warning: The contents of this dictionary should not
] be modified; changes may not affect the values of local
] variables used by the interpreter.

Changing globals is allowed.

Hans Nowak said to use 'exec'
> exec "%s = 3" % (i)
  ...
> Or you can mess with the locals() or globals() dictionaries,
> but this is not guaranteed to work.

It's exactly as guaranteed to work as exec:

                    Andrew
                    dalke at dalkescientific.com