[Tutor] Fixing Globals

[kendy at kendy.org]

Dear Tutor

Global constants and variables are bad. But what's better? I've heard some
suggestions, but haven't seen much actual code showing how to improve globals. I
don't like:

* Passing a lot of individual arguments.
* Creating a structure with unrelated elements.
* Passing a structure, as an argument, through a function that uses only one (or
none of the) elements in the structure.

I created an example (below), that could be written with global constants and
variables. How would you suggest handling something like this? (I don't need you
to stick to my example.)

#!/usr/bin/python

START = '<'
END = '>'

def getargs():
    getops()
    if
        in_filename_1 =
        in_filename_2 =
        out_filename_1 =
        out_filename_2 =
        flag1 =
        verbose =

def this():
    open_for_read()
    stuff()

def open_for_read(filename):
    in_filehandle = open(
    return in_filehandle

def stuff():
    if c == START or c == END:
        foo_the_bar =

def that():
    things()
    write_status(out_filename_1)

def things():
    bar_the_foo = foo_the_bar
    if verbose:
        print(flag1)

def write_status(out_filename_1):

getargs()
this()
that()


I very much appreciate the help that you have given me!

Thanks
Ken