Need help with Python scoping rules

[Diez B. Roggisch]

John Posner schrieb:
> Diez said:
>>
>> Classes are not scopes.
>> So the above doesn't work because name resolution inside 
>> functions/methods
>> looks for local variables first, then for the *global* scope. There is no
>> class-scope-lookup.
> 
> But http://docs.python.org/tutorial/classes.html says, in Section 9.3 "A 
> First Look at Classes":
> 
> When a class definition is entered, a new namespace is created,
> and used as the local scope — thus, all assignments to local variables
> go into this new namespace. In particular, function definitions bind
> the name of the new function here.
> 
> 
> The following example confirms this:
> 
> class Spam(object):
> clsvar_1 = 555
> clsvar_2 = clsvar_1 + 222
> 
> def __init__(self):
> print "Spam instance initialized"
> 
> sp = Spam()
> print sp.clsvar_1, sp.clsvar_2
> 
> output:
> Spam instance initialized
> 555 777
> 
> 
> Does the OP (kj) have a legitimate gripe, though? I confess that I know 
> nothing about Python's implementation -- I'm strictly a user. So it's 
> just a suspicion of mine that
> something special enables a recursive function definition to refer to 
> the function's own name before the definition has been completed. It 
> works at the module-namespace (i.e. global) level, and Diez's "toy 
> example" shows that it works at function-namespace level:
> 
>    class Demo(object):
> 
>        def fact(n):
>            def inner(n):
>                if n < 2:
>                    return 1
>                else:
>                    return n * inner(n - 1)
>            return inner(n)
> 
>        _classvar = fact(5)
> 
> 
> So why can't it work at the class-namespace level, too?

See my other post on what name lookup with class-scope *inside* 
functions would mean.

Diez