Where do nested functions live?

[Steve Holden]

Steven D'Aprano wrote:
> I defined a nested function:
> 
> def foo():
>     def bar():
>         return "bar"
>     return "foo " + bar()
> 
> which works. Knowing how Python loves namespaces, I thought I could do
> this:
> 
> 
>>>>foo.bar()
> 
> Traceback (most recent call last):
>   File "<stdin>", line 1, in ?
> AttributeError: 'function' object has no attribute 'bar'
> 
> but it doesn't work as I expected.
> 
> 
> where do nested functions live? How can you access them, for example, to
> read their doc strings?
> 
> 
> 
It doesn't "live" anywhere: if I wrote the function

def foo():
     locvar = 23
     return locvar

would you expect to be able to access foo.locvar?

It's exactly the same thing: the statement

     def bar():

isn't executed until the foo() function is called, and its execution 
binds the name bar in foo's local namespace to the function that is defined.

regards
  Steve

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