Re: Function declarations ?

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From	Gregory Ewing <greg.ewing@canterbury.ac.nz>
Newsgroups	comp.lang.python
Subject	Re: Function declarations ?
Date	Tue, 14 Jun 2011 14:03:30 +1200
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Tim Roberts wrote:
> Andre Majorel <cheney@halliburton.com> wrote:
> 
>>Anyway, it seems the Python way to declare a function is
>>
>> def f ():
>>   pass
> 
> No, that DEFINES a function.

Actually, it's more illuminating to say that it *creates* a function.

The 'def' statement in Python is an executable statement. Executing
it has the effect of creating a function object and binding it to
the indicated name. Before that has happened, attempting to execute
any code referring to that name will fail.

Conversely, the function name doesn't need to be bound until the
code referring to it is actually executed. So...

>     def g():
>         return f()
>     def f():
>         return 3
>     print g()

works because by the time g is *called*, both def statements
have been executed, and both function names have therefore been
bound.

-- 
Greg

Thread

Function declarations ? Andre Majorel <cheney@halliburton.com> - 2011-06-08 13:58 +0000
  Re: Function declarations ? Calvin Spealman <ironfroggy@gmail.com> - 2011-06-08 10:06 -0400
  Re: Function declarations ? "D'Arcy J.M. Cain" <darcy@druid.net> - 2011-06-08 10:27 -0400
  Re: Function declarations ? Asen Bozhilov <asen.bozhilov@gmail.com> - 2011-06-10 15:46 -0700
    Re: Function declarations ? Andre Majorel <cheney@halliburton.com> - 2011-06-12 19:38 +0000
      Re: Function declarations ? Tim Roberts <timr@probo.com> - 2011-06-12 21:27 -0700
        Re: Function declarations ? Gregory Ewing <greg.ewing@canterbury.ac.nz> - 2011-06-14 14:03 +1200
      Re: Function declarations ? Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> - 2011-06-13 14:58 +0000
        Re: Function declarations ? Gregory Ewing <greg.ewing@canterbury.ac.nz> - 2011-06-14 13:18 +1200
      Re: Function declarations ? John Nagle <nagle@animats.com> - 2011-06-13 17:19 -0700

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