Pascal int()

[Michael Hudson]

Michal Bozon <bozon at natur.cuni.cz> writes:

> Hi.
> 
> I want to have a function (of course in Python) equivalent to Pascal
> function int(). (It increments an integer stored in argument by 1).
> 
> This should do folowwing:
> 
> >>> i = 10
> >>> int(i)
> >>> i
> 11
> 
> eventually:
> 
> >>> i = 10
> >>> int(i, 2)
> >>> i
> 12
> 
> I have no idea how to do it.

Which is because you can't.  Variables are just names in Python;
there's no way inside a function to find out how a value that was
passed into you got there.

ASCII art coming up:

Suppose `int' is defined starting

def int(v):
    ...

in the interpreter toplevel you have this situation:

|-------|         /-----------------\
| "int" | ======> | function object |
|-------|         \-----------------/

|-----|         /----------------\
| "i" | ======> | the integer 10 |
|-----|         \----------------/

then when you execute "int(i)" you enter the execution context of the
int function where the namespace looks like:

|-----|         /----------------\
| "v" | ======> | the integer 10 |
|-----|         \----------------/

There's no way to find out starting from here that the variable "i" a
stack frame up points to the value that was passed in.

You can do this, though:

>>> def incr(l): l[0]=l[0]+1

>>> i=[10]
>>> incr(i)
>>> i
[11]

because lists are mutable.

Soz,
M.

PS: Actually what I said above isn't strictly true if you're willing
to do insane things like pulling apart the call stack and decompiling
bytecode.  You don't want to do this ...

-- 
very few people approach me in real life and insist on proving they are
drooling idiots.                         -- Erik Naggum, comp.lang.lisp