Namespace puzzle, list comprehension fails within class definition

[Chris Angelico]

On Tue, Jan 13, 2015 at 7:25 AM, John Ladasky
<john_ladasky at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> When I am working inside the class namespace, the print function call on line 8 recognizes the name f and prints the dictionary bound to that name.
>
> However, the LIST COMPREHENSION defined inside the class namespace generates a NameError.

A list comp is defined with a function call:

>>> def f():
...  return [x*x for x in range(4)]
...
>>> dis.dis(f)
  2           0 LOAD_CONST               1 (<code object <listcomp> at
0x7fdf25981420, file "<stdin>", line 2>)
              3 LOAD_CONST               2 ('f.<locals>.<listcomp>')
              6 MAKE_FUNCTION            0
              9 LOAD_GLOBAL              0 (range)
             12 LOAD_CONST               3 (4)
             15 CALL_FUNCTION            1 (1 positional, 0 keyword pair)
             18 GET_ITER
             19 CALL_FUNCTION            1 (1 positional, 0 keyword pair)
             22 RETURN_VALUE

This prevents leakage of the iterator into the enclosing scope.
Personally, I think it's a hack to get around the fact that Python
doesn't have any concept of sub-function-scope (similar to the weird
hack in try/except); if it weren't for that, true nesting would be
easier. As it is, function definitions in class scope have a special
meaning, and that interferes a bit with list comps.

ChrisA