[Pythonmac-SIG] PythonCGISlave conflict with SMTPlib? (MacOS 9, Pers. Web Sharing)

[Just van Rossum]

At 4:10 PM -0700 20-08-2000, Bob Heeter wrote:
>and then in data_module:
>
>	MYDATA = 0
>
>	def getdata():
>		if ( (not MYDATA) or time_to_update() ):  # need to load
>database
>			MYDATA = get_cgi_data()
>		else:
>			return MYDATA
>
>Whenever I tried to run this, I got a Name Error exception on MYDATA,
>at the if statement in the getdata function.  I was under the impression
>that the function would be aware of the global variable in the module,
>but that doesn't seem to be the case.  [ ... ]

Python's scoping rule (short version ;-): "a variable is local to a
function if it is assgined to *somewhere* in the function. Otherwise it's
global." So your MYDATA = ... line makes MYDATA local to the function. You
need to decalre MYDATA global like so:

	MYDATA = 0

	def getdata():
		global MYDATA
		if ( (not MYDATA) or time_to_update() ):  # need to load
database
			MYDATA = get_cgi_data()
		else:
			return MYDATA

Just