creating class objects inside methods

[Rob Williscroft]

Benjamin Kaplan wrote in news:mailman.838.1254682604.2807.python-
list at python.org in comp.lang.python:

>> And how do you just check a script's syntax without running it
>> anyways?
>> )
> 
> Because these aren't compile-time errors. Python has no compilation
> phase- 

Sure it does, compilation happens for every script that is executed.

And for every import, if the pre-compiled byte code can't be found it 
is compiled (and the byte code saved as a .pyc or .pyo file).

Its only when a the interpreter has the complete compiled byte code
for a script or imported module that it executes anything.

Python could, if it was wanted, detect multiple syntax and other 
compilation errors, but AIUI the (CPython) developers choose not 
to, as it significantly simplifies (and thus speeds up) the 
compilation process, which can be significant for an interpreted
language.

For example I just ran a script with the one line:

    	print "hello world"

through IronPython (2.0 (2.0.0.0) on .NET 2.0.50727.3082)

I counted "1 and 2 and ... 12" before I seeing "hello world"

(Aside I think this is something that the current IronPython beta 
(2.6) "fixes", but I havent tried it myself yet.)

>         every statement (including def and class) is an executable

Yes but for example the execution of the statement:

    	def example() : pass

just assignes (binds) the compiled function to the name "example".

> statement and it gets turned into byte code at execution time. Just
> like any other language, when Python hits a runtime error, it stops.
> 

Rob.
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