[Tutor] Syntax Error? Variable Scope?

[Chuck Coker]

Hi Folks,

I am new to Python, but I have many years experience in software
development. I have a question about variable scope. I'm having a
problem that I suspect is merely a syntax error or something of that
nature.

I'm not real clear on variable scoping rules, either. I can't figure
out how to declare a variable containing a file pointer outside a
class and then access the variable from inside a method inside the
class. I could be creating errors when trying to use the "global"
keyword due to not fully understanding the scope rules. The examples
I found so far in books and on the web are to simplistic for what I
want to do.

I am using a load-testing app named The Grinder (version 3, beta 30)
and Python 2.5.

I want my script to open an external CSV (comma-separated values) file
containing x number of records with people's names, addresses, etc. I
want the file opened outside the TestRunner class (the main class for
The Grinder) when the script is first started.

Then I want each instance of the TestRunner class to read one line
from the external CSV file. After it gets the line from the file, I
want to split the line at the commas into components and do the
processing stuff.

After the last instance of TestRunner finishes, I want the script to
close the file and exit nicely.

My reasoning for opening and closing the CSV file outside the class is
that I want the file to stay open and have the file cursor maintain
its location after each read. For example, if I am running 2,000
threads, the file gets opened, whatever thread gets there first reads
line 1, the next thread that gets there reads line 2, and so on until
all 2,000 threads have had a chance to get a different line from the
file. Then I want the file to close.

Here are some code snippets:

----------------------------------------------------------------------
from net.grinder.script import Test
from net.grinder.script.Grinder import grinder
from net.grinder.plugin.http import HTTPPluginControl, HTTPRequest
from HTTPClient import NVPair
connectionDefaults = HTTPPluginControl.getConnectionDefaults()
httpUtilities = HTTPPluginControl.getHTTPUtilities()

[... snip ...]

fileNewUserInfo = 'new-user-info.csv'
fileNewUserInfoIsOpen = 0

[... snip ...]

class TestRunner:
  """A TestRunner instance is created for each worker thread."""

  # The instance initialization method.
  def __init__(self):
    print 'We are in TestRunner.__init__()'
    global infile
    global fileNewUserInfoIsOpen
    if (fileNewUserInfoIsOpen == 0):
      infile = open(fileNewUserInfo, "r")
      fileNewUserInfoIsOpen += 1;
      print 'We are inside the open if statement'
    #global infile
    self._userTokenCtx = ''
    self._userTokenRi = ''
    self._userInfo = []

    for line in infile.readlines():
      self._userInfo.append(string.split((line),','))
      print line

    print self._userInfo

  def nextMethod(self):

[... snip ...]
----------------------------------------------------------------------

The script blows up at this line inside the for loop:

      self._userInfo.append(string.split((line),','))

with this error message in my error log:

11/2/06 7:12:20 PM (thread 0): Aborting thread due to Jython exception
"NameError: string" whilst creating per-thread test runner object

NameError: string
    File "new-user-registration.py", line 356, in __init__

I've tried using "import string" and it doesn't like that. I'm sure
I'm missing something very basic here due to my newness with Python.
Can anyone offer any insights?

Thanks,
Chuck

-- 
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Chuck Coker, Software Developer                python-tutor at ccoker.net
Tyrell Software Corporation                      http://www.tyrell.com
Office: +1 949 458 1911 x 203                    Cell: +1 714 326 5939
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