3.4. Declaring variables

Now that you know something about dictionaries, tuples, and lists (oh my!), let's get back to the sample program from Chapter 2, odbchelper.py.

Python has local and global variables like most other languages, but it has no explicit variable declarations. Variables spring into existence by being assigned a value, and they are automatically destroyed when they go out of scope.

Example 3.17. Defining the myParams Variable


if __name__ == "__main__":
    myParams = {"server":"mpilgrim", \
                "database":"master", \
                "uid":"sa", \
                "pwd":"secret" \
                }

Notice the indentation. An if statement is a code block and needs to be indented just like a function.

Also notice that the variable assignment is one command split over several lines, with a backslash (“\”) serving as a line-continuation marker.

Note
When a command is split among several lines with the line-continuation marker (“\”), the continued lines can be indented in any manner; Python's normally stringent indentation rules do not apply. If your Python IDE auto-indents the continued line, you should probably accept its default unless you have a burning reason not to.

Strictly speaking, expressions in parentheses, straight brackets, or curly braces (like defining a dictionary) can be split into multiple lines with or without the line continuation character (“\”). I like to include the backslash even when it's not required because I think it makes the code easier to read, but that's a matter of style.

Third, you never declared the variable myParams, you just assigned a value to it. This is like VBScript without the option explicit option. Luckily, unlike VBScript, Python will not allow you to reference a variable that has never been assigned a value; trying to do so will raise an exception.

3.4.1. Referencing Variables

Example 3.18. Referencing an Unbound Variable

>>> x
Traceback (innermost last):
  File "<interactive input>", line 1, in ?
NameError: There is no variable named 'x'
>>> x = 1
>>> x
1

You will thank Python for this one day.

3.4.2. Assigning Multiple Values at Once

One of the cooler programming shortcuts in Python is using sequences to assign multiple values at once.

Example 3.19. Assigning multiple values at once

>>> v = ('a', 'b', 'e')
>>> (x, y, z) = v     1
>>> x
'a'
>>> y
'b'
>>> z
'e'
1 v is a tuple of three elements, and (x, y, z) is a tuple of three variables. Assigning one to the other assigns each of the values of v to each of the variables, in order.

This has all sorts of uses. I often want to assign names to a range of values. In C, you would use enum and manually list each constant and its associated value, which seems especially tedious when the values are consecutive. In Python, you can use the built-in range function with multi-variable assignment to quickly assign consecutive values.

Example 3.20. Assigning Consecutive Values

>>> range(7)                                                                    1
[0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]
>>> (MONDAY, TUESDAY, WEDNESDAY, THURSDAY, FRIDAY, SATURDAY, SUNDAY) = range(7) 2
>>> MONDAY                                                                      3
0
>>> TUESDAY
1
>>> SUNDAY
6
1 The built-in range function returns a list of integers. In its simplest form, it takes an upper limit and returns a zero-based list counting up to but not including the upper limit. (If you like, you can pass other parameters to specify a base other than 0 and a step other than 1. You can print range.__doc__ for details.)
2 MONDAY, TUESDAY, WEDNESDAY, THURSDAY, FRIDAY, SATURDAY, and SUNDAY are the variables you're defining. (This example came from the calendar module, a fun little module that prints calendars, like the UNIX program cal. The calendar module defines integer constants for days of the week.)
3 Now each variable has its value: MONDAY is 0, TUESDAY is 1, and so forth.

You can also use multi-variable assignment to build functions that return multiple values, simply by returning a tuple of all the values. The caller can treat it as a tuple, or assign the values to individual variables. Many standard Python libraries do this, including the os module, which you'll discuss in Chapter 6.