Namespaces in functions vs classes

[Ian Kelly]

On Tue, Apr 19, 2011 at 10:31 AM, Ethan Furman <ethan at stoneleaf.us> wrote:
> Gerald Britton wrote:
>>
>> I now understand the Python does
>> not consider a class definition as a separate namespace as it does for
>> function definitions.  That is a helpful understanding.
>
> That is not correct.  Classes are separate namespaces -- they just aren't
> automatically searched.  The only namespaces that are automatically searched
> are local, non-local, global, and built-in.

The problem is that they are treated differently at run-time.  A
function namespace is compiled into a collection of local variable
names and closures, and it is effectively immutable.  This is
necessary in order to generate the correct bytecode for each type of
storage location.  A class namespace ultimately becomes a dict, and it
is a key feature that these be mutable.  However, this means that a
class namespace can't have closures.