How modules work in Python

Larry Hudson orgnut at yahoo.com
Tue Nov 18 03:14:02 EST 2014


First, I'll repeat everybody else:  DON'T TOP POST!!!

On 11/16/2014 04:41 PM, Abdul Abdul wrote:
> Dave,
>
> Thanks for your nice explanation. For your answer on one of my questions:
>
> *Modules don't have methods. open is an ordinary function in the module.*
>
> Isn't "method" and "function" used interchangeably? In other words, aren't they the same thing?
> Or, Python has some naming conventions here?
>

You've already received answers to this, but a short example might clarify the difference:

#-------  Code  --------
#   Define a function
def func1():
     print('This is function func1()')

#   Define a class with a method
class Examp:
     def func2(self):
         print('This is method func2()')

#   Try them out
obj = Examp()      #  Create an object (an instance of class Examp)
func1()            #  Call the function
obj.func2()        #  Call the method through the object
func2()            #  Try to call the method directly -- Error!
#-------  /Code  --------

This code results in the following:

This is function func1()
This is method func2()
Traceback (most recent call last):
   File "fun-meth.py", line 14, in <module>
     func2()
NameError: name 'func2' is not defined

      -=- Larry -=-




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