lambda in list comprehension acting funny

rusi rustompmody at gmail.com
Fri Jul 13 12:46:00 EDT 2012


On Jul 13, 9:12 pm, "Prasad, Ramit" <ramit.pra... at jpmorgan.com> wrote:
> > VERBOSE = True
>
> > def function(arg):
> >     if VERBOSE:
> >        print("calling function with arg %r" % arg)
> >     process(arg)
>
> > def caller():
> >     VERBOSE = False
> >     function(1)
>
> > ---------------------------------------------
> > Python semantics: function sees VERBOSE False
> > Haskell semantics: function sees VERBOSE True
> >>> def caller():
>
> ...     VERBOSE = False
> ...     function(1)>>> def function(arg):
>
> ...     if VERBOSE:
> ...        print("calling function with arg %r" % arg)
> ...    >>> VERBOSE = True
> >>> caller()
>
> calling function with arg 1
>
> I might be being OCD, but caller needs `global VERBOSE` for that to
> work as you explain.

Ok let me restate: if python were to work that way (without the
global) we could say either
a Python chooses to have dynamic scoping of variables
or
b There is a bug in python's scoping rules

I would guess that most younger folks (who've not seen lisp and apl)
would choose b

We can say the same analogously in the context of ZF expressions when
the i leaks as it does in the OPs example.

Another tack on the same question: python 3 cleaned up the variable
leakage from inside ZFs to outside.  It missed cleaning up the leakage
from one step to next.

tl;dr version: Beware of mixing up functional and imperative
programming
Double-beware when you are a language designer



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