CODEWITHSUNDEEP
pythontkinter
Brian Hauger
Brian Hauger

Reputation: 521

Returning a value after calling a function with a button in Tkinter

from Tkinter import *
from tkFileDialog import askopenfilename
from PIL import Image
def main():
    filename = askopenfilename(filetypes=[("Jpeg","*.jpg")])
return filename
root = Tk()
button = Button(root,text="Open",command=main)
button.pack()
root.title("Image Manipulation Program")
root.mainloop()

I am kind of a newbie at programming in general, but I am trying to make an imaging program through the Tkinter GUI library. What I need to be able to do in the code above is return the string that is stored in filename so it is in the global scope of the program and I am able to use it. The problem is I don't know how to do this when calling the function with a button. I cannot find the answer to this problem on any website so I would appreciate anybody's help with this problem.

Upvotes: 2

Views: 15907

Answers (2)

Apalala
Apalala

Reputation: 9244

If you use the class based approach to Tk applications, instead of returning values from event handlers, you can assign them to instance variables. This the best approach, as function-based GUI applications don't scale well precisely because the need to place stuff at module scope.

from Tkinter import *

class Application(Frame):

    def main(self):
        self.filename = askopenfilename(filetypes=[("Jpeg","*.jpg")])

    def createWidgets(self):
        self.button = Button(root,text="Open",command=self.main)
        self.button.pack()

    def __init__(self, master=None):
        Frame.__init__(self, master)
        self.filename = None
        self.pack()
        self.createWidgets()

root = Tk()
root.title("Image Manipulation Program")
app = Application(master=root)
app.mainloop()

Upvotes: 6

Adeel Zafar Soomro
Adeel Zafar Soomro

Reputation: 1522

Generally, it is bad practice to use global variables to pass information around your program. However, if you really must do this, use a mutable data type (such as a list or a dict) as your global variable and change its contents from your callback function, main.

returned_values = {}    # Create an empty dict.
def main():
    returned_values['filename'] = askopenfilename(filetypes=[("Jpeg","*.jpg")])
    # returned_values['filename'] may now be accessed in the global scope.

If you intend to do this frequently, consider implementing your own class to pass information around.

Upvotes: 2

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