variables exist

[Brian van den Broek]

Richard Brodie said unto the world upon 2005-04-12 04:56:
> "Brian van den Broek" <bvande at po-box.mcgill.ca> wrote in message
> news:mailman.1703.1113237192.1799.python-list at python.org...
> 
> 
>>I'm a hobbyist and still learning, but the claim the try/except is
>>"lousy Python" surprise me a bit.
> 
> 
> I think it wasn't the use of try/except as such. It's more that
> if you're the developer you ought to know whether variables
> are defined or not. It might be a sign you're using global
> variables more often than would be considered good style in
> Python.

Richard and STeVe,

thanks for the replies :-)

I see your point, Richard. Though where it has come up for me most 
often is code internal to a class, where I only need a "real" value 
for a class attribute in some cases, depending upon the inputs to the 
class __init__. "Globals are bad" is one lesson I have learned :-)

STeVe stressed that the try/except solution is only really appropriate 
for cases where the failure to have the variable defined is quite 
rare. Even though wary of "the root of all evil ... " that seems a 
good reminder. Thanks.

Best to all,

Brian vdB