implicit variable declaration and access

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Mon, 13 Jun 2005 12:18:31 -0400, Ali Razavi wrote:

> Is there any reflective facility in python
> that I can use to define a variable with a
> name stored in another variable ?
> like I have :
> x = "myVarName"
> 
> what can I do to declare a new variable with the name of the string
> stored in x. And how can I access that implicitly later ?

Any time you find yourself wanting to indirectly define variables like
this, the chances are you would get better results (faster, less security
risks, easier to maintain, easier to re-factor and optimise, more
readable) if you change the algorithm.

Instead of:

x = "myVarName"
create_real_variable(x, some_value)
print myVarName

why not do something like this:

data = {"myVarName": some_value}
print data["myVarName"]

It is fast, clean, easy to read, easy to maintain, no security risks from
using exec, and other Python programmers won't laugh at you behind your
back <smiles>


-- 
Steven