namespace problems

[Terry Reedy]

"Kiran" <Kiran.Karra at gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:1156524852.973852.76800 at h48g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
> Hi all, I am trying to get the following to work, but cant seem to do
> it the way i want to.
>
> ok, so I come into python and do the following:
>
>>>> x = 1
>
> then, i have a file called test.py in which i say:
> print x
>
> Now, after having defined x =1 in the python interpreter, i come in and
> say:
> import test
> it has a problem, which i can understand, because it is in its own
> namespace,
> but even if i say:
> from test import *
> the interpreter still gives me the error:
> NameError: name 'x' is not defined
>
> the only way i can get it to work is if i say: execfile('./test.py')
> how can i get this to work by importing and not execfile?

Dennis gave you one way: import __main__ into test.
Another way to come close is to put the print inside a function.

test.py
---------
def p(): print x

Then your script could say

import test
test.x = 1
test.p()

If you don't already, you need to know that import only executes the code 
for a module the *first* time you import it.  So normally, top level code 
in modules consists of function and class definitions and perhaps the 
initialization of a few module-level constants or variables.

Terry Jan Reedy