[Tutor] puzzled by main()

[Danny Yoo]

On Thu, 19 Aug 2004, Dick Moores wrote:

> I wrote intSpell.py for practice with integers, strings and modules. It
> works fine by itself, but I'd like to figure out how to use it as a
> module which I can import and use as intSpell(n).

Hi Dick,

Sounds good!  Let's take a look.


> Is my use of main() the problem? Or if not, what should I do?


One thing to clarify here: a module can provide more than one function to
the outside world, so Python has no idea that main() is function you mean
when you say:

###
import intSpell
print intSpell.intSpell(42)
###

With what you have right now, it looks more like:

###
import intSpell
print intSpell.main()
###

which probably isn't what you want.


So you have to, well, spell it out to Python.  *grin*  Rename the main()
function to intSpell().  Also, modify it so it takes in 'n' as a
parameter.  Otherwise, we won't be able to say:

    intSpell.intSpell(n)

for any given n.


If you have more questions on this, please feel free to ask.  Also, take a
look at the first two sections of:

    http://www.python.org/doc/tut/node8.html

The official tutorial has a good example with the "fibonacci numbers
module" that's similar in spirit to what you're doing with a
number-spelling module.


Good luck!