NameError: how to get the name?

[Yingjie Lan]

--- On Sat, 4/24/10, Steven D'Aprano <steve at REMOVE-THIS-cybersource.com.au> wrote:

> From: Steven D'Aprano <steve at REMOVE-THIS-cybersource.com.au>
> Subject: Re: NameError: how to get the name?
> To: python-list at python.org
> Date: Saturday, April 24, 2010, 4:07 PM
> On Sat, 24 Apr 2010 04:19:43 -0700,
> Yingjie Lan wrote:
> 
> > I wanted to do something like this:
> > 
> > while True:
> >   try:
> >     def fun(a, b=b, c=c): pass
> >   except NameError as ne:
> >     name = get_the_var_name(ne)
> >     locals()[name] = ''
> >   else: break
> 
> This won't work. Writing to locals() does not actually
> change the local 
> variables. Try it inside a function, and you will see it
> doesn't work:
> 

I tried this, and it worked:

Python 2.6.1 (r261:67515, Feb 11 2010, 00:51:29) 
[GCC 4.2.1 (Apple Inc. build 5646)] on darwin
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> while True:
...     try: print a
...     except: locals()['a']="HERE YOU ARE"
...     else: break
... 
HERE YOU ARE
>>>