Constants and Globals

[Sean 'Shaleh' Perry]

On Saturday 14 December 2002 04:41, Travis Beaty wrote:
>
> 1.  Is there such an animal as a "constant" in Python?  I've looked
> through the manual, documentation, and FAQ's, but I haven't been able to
> find an answer about that.  I'm sure it's there somewhere, and I've just
> overlooked it.  I noted that the term "constant" was used, but I am
> unsure whether one can actually lock the value of a variable, or whether
> such constants are simply "constant by agreement."
>

there is no direct support for this in Python.  The idiom is to name the 
variable in ALL CAPS and never name anything else that way.

> 2.  I'm working on an application that needs to have a global variable.
>  I, of course, do my best to shy away from globals; however, since this
> is a dictionary which contains user preference settings, I can see no
> other alternative.  I've implemented this global variable by placing it
> into a module which will be imported by all other modules.  Is this the
> "standard" way that globals are created?  Again, I've read the docs and
> tutorial where variable scope is concerned, but I'm still a little
> unclear on it.
>

sounds like the standard approach.