Unexpected python exception

[Diez B. Roggisch]

Richard Purdie schrieb:
> I've been having problems with an unexpected exception from python which
> I can summarise with the following testcase:
> 
> def A():
>     import __builtin__
>     import os
> 
>     __builtin__.os = os
> 
> def B():
>     os.stat("/")
>     import os
> 
> A()
> B()
> 
> which results in:
> 
> Traceback (most recent call last):
>   File "./test.py", line 12, in <module>
>     B()
>   File "./test.py", line 8, in B
>     os.stat("/")
> UnboundLocalError: local variable 'os' referenced before assignment
> 
> If I remove the "import os" from B(), it works as expected.
> 
>>From what I've seen, its very unusual to have something operate
> "backwards" in scope in python. Can anyone explain why this happens?

As the import-statement in a function/method-scope doesn't leak the 
imported names into the module scope, python treats them as locals. 
Which makes your code equivalent to


x = 1000

def foo():
     print x
     x = 10

Throws the same error. The remedy is to inform python that a specific 
name belongs to global scope, using the "global"-statement.

def foo():
     global x
     print x
     x = 10


Beware though that then of course *assigning* to x is on global level. 
This shouldn't be of any difference in your case though, because of the 
import-only-once-mechanics of python.

Diez