won't recognize functions in script

[Carl]

I've never had this problem before and I've been using ActivePython for
months on XP with no problems (except its inability to control-break running
programs...).

I'm writing a simple text file processing program which at this stage just
is reading characters and getting their ascii values. When I define
functions python gives me 'NameError: name 'ascii_val' is not defined'

this piece of my code is this:


print ch, ascii_val(ch)     # ch is just a character read from a file

def ascii_val(char):
    # returns 1-26 for A-Z or 27 for a space
    x = ord(char) - 96
    if x == -64:
        return 27
    else:
        assert(x >= 1 and x<=26)
        return x

and it gives me the NameError. It does this with _all_ of my def functions.
I've tried changing their names, locations in the file, moving everything to
a new file, exiting and restarting, rebooting. When I quickly write a
generic program to see if a def function works there are no problems, and
all my old programs work.

Can anyone guess what's happening? Thanks for any help you can offer!

Carl Scharenberg
kingprad at mail.com