global variables ?

[John Roth]

"ruari mactaggart" <ruari at charliefortune.com> wrote in message
news:bo04ou$382$1 at news8.svr.pol.co.uk...
> how do I assign a value to a variable inside a function then use it in the
> main body ?
>
> i am trying to unpickle a dictionary in a function to use it in the
program

Since Alex has already mentioned the 'global' statement,
I won't dwell on it. I'd just mention that it's a whole lot
simpler to use a global dictionary or an object instance
than to use a simple variable that has to be rebound.

For example:

foobar = "huh?"

def snafu():
    global foobar
    foobar = "what?"


Using a dictionary, it looks like this:

foodict = {foobar: "huh?"}

def snafu():
    foodict["foobar"] = "what?"

That lets you consolidate all of those messy global variables
in one place as well as giving you a name you can use for
better internal documentation.

John Roth
>
> ruari
>
>