How To Change The Scope Of A Variable In A Function? Python

This may seem like a really stupid question but I am confused regarding the scope rules in Python. In the following example I send two variables (x,y) with values to a function whi

Solution 1:

Think of them as being part of the function. When the function ends, all its variables die too.

x=2
y=3

def func(x,y):
    x=200
    y=300

func(x,y) #inside this function, x=200 and y=300
#but by this line the function is over and those new values are discarded
print(x,y) #so this is looking at the outer scope again

If you want a function to modify a value in exactly the way you have written it, you could use a global but this is VERY bad practice.

def func(x,y):
    global x #these tell the function to look at the outer scope 
    global y #and use those references to x and y, not the inner scope
    x=200
    y=300

func(x,y)
print(x,y) #prints 200 300

The problem with this is that it makes debugging a nightmare in the best case, and utterly incomprehensibly impossible in the worst case. Things like these are commonly known as "side effects" in functions -- setting a value you don't need set and doing so without explicitly returning it is kind of a Bad Thing. Generally the only functions you should write that modify items in-place are object methods (things like [].append() modify the list because it's silly to return a new list instead!)

The RIGHT way to do something like this would be to use a return value. Try something like

def func(x,y):
    x = x+200 #this can be written x += 200
    y = y+300 #as above: y += 300
    return (x,y) #returns a tuple (x,y)

x = 2
y = 3
func(x,y) # returns (202, 303)
print(x,y) #prints 2 3

Why didn't that work? Well because you never told the program to DO anything with that tuple (202, 303), just to calculate it. Let's assign it now

#func as defined above

x=2 ; y=3
x,y = func(x,y) #this unpacks the tuple (202,303) into two values and x and y
print(x,y) #prints 202 303