CODEWITHSUNDEEP
pythonfunctionvariablesgloballocal
King James
King James

Reputation: 45

Changing the local variable of a function from within another function that is defined in said function.. Python

Is there a way to access the local variable of a function from a function that is defined within said function? Y is a tuple with strings, and I want whatever caps becomes when a condition is met to stay the same for the next call with the next item in y. I tried to use the built-in function global, but I guess that only works for globals. 

def cap_sentence(y):  
    caps = "on"  
    def func(x):  
        if caps == "on"
            caps = "off"
            return x.capitalize()
        elif "." in x:
            caps = "on"
    return tuple(map(func, y))

Upvotes: 2

Views: 192

Answers (2)

senderle
senderle

Reputation: 151027

Although using nonlocal is the direct answer to your question, I would encourage you to consider using a callable class here. This avoids re-defining a function every time cap_sentence is called, and it handles state a more obvious way (to me, anyway). I've taken the liberty of adding a return statement at the end, so that you don't get a string of None values. 

class _CapSentence(object):
    def __init__(self):
        self.caps = 'on'
    def capitalize(self, x):
        if self.caps == 'on':
            self.caps = 'off'
            return x.capitalize()
        elif '.' in x:
            self.caps = 'on'
        return x
    def __call__(self, y):
        return tuple(map(self.capitalize, y))

cap_sentence = _CapSentence()

print cap_sentence("my feet are cold. my toes are sandwiches.".split())

# output: ('My', 'feet', 'are', 'cold.', 'My', 'toes', 'are', 'sandwiches.')

Upvotes: 0

Ashwini Chaudhary
Ashwini Chaudhary

Reputation: 251001

Use nonlocal in Python 3.x:

def cap_sentence(y):  
    caps = "on"  

    def func(x):  
        nonlocal caps 
        if caps == "on":
            caps = "off"
            return x.capitalize()
        elif "." in x:
            caps = "on"

    return tuple(map(func, y))

In python 2.7:

def cap_sentence(y):  
    cap_sentence.caps = "on"  

    def func(x):  
        if cap_sentence.caps == "on":
            cap_sentence.caps = "off"
            return x.capitalize()
        elif "." in x:
            cap_sentence.caps = "on"

    return tuple(map(func, y))

Upvotes: 7

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