Why use "locals()"

[Gabriel Genellina]

En Mon, 14 Sep 2009 00:06:51 -0300, Sean DiZazzo <half.italian at gmail.com>  
escribió:

> I have never used a call to "locals()" in my code.  Can you show me a
> use case where it is valuable and Pythonic?

def print_item(item):
     description = textwrap.fill(item.description, 40)
     short = item.description.split('\n', 1)[0]
     code = str(item.id).zfill(6)
     print "%(code)s %(short)s\n%(description)s\n" % locals()

Transferring arguments:

def foo(some, long, list, of, arguments):
     additional = 5
     return other(**locals())

Defining properties:

class ColourThing(object):
     @apply
     def rgb():
         def fset(self, rgb):
             self.r, self.g, self.b = rgb
         def fget(self):
             return (self.r, self.g, self.b)
         return property(**locals())

(example taken from this recent thread  
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/449eb9b835a472e7/  
see also this recipe http://code.activestate.com/recipes/576742/ )

-- 
Gabriel Genellina