function pointers

[Remco Gerlich]

Brandon J. Van Every <vanevery at 3DProgrammer.com> wrote in comp.lang.python:
> Please pardon my ignorant questions.  I'm just trying to grok Python
> efficiently as a complete beginner, without having to search endlessly in
> every page of TFM.
> 
> I get the feeling that Python doesn't have anything resembling a function
> pointer?  i.e. no way to call a specific function according to the value a
> variable is set to?  In fact, I get the feeling it doesn't have pointers of
> any sort at all?

It's the other way around. *Everything* is a pointer.

def whee(x):
   print "My argument was:", x

'whee' is now a reference (pointer) to the function we just created.
We can pass it to itself, for instance:

>>> whee(whee)
My argument was: <function whee at 8071750>

Every variable is just a reference to an object somewhere.

And functions are just objects, just like lists, integers, and everything.

-- 
Remco Gerlich