Hi,

I'm trying to run a piece of python code using exec.

my_code = """
class A(object):
  pass

print 'locals: %s' % locals()
print 'A: %s' % A

class B(object):
  a_ref = A
"""

global_env = {}
local_env = {}
my_code_AST = compile(my_code, "My Code", "exec")
exec(my_code_AST, global_env, local_env)

print local_env

which results in the following output

locals: {'A': <class 'A'>}
A: <class 'A'>
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "python_test.py", line 16, in <module>
    exec(my_code_AST, global_env, local_env)
  File "My Code", line 8, in <module>
  File "My Code", line 9, in B
NameError: name 'A' is not defined

However, if I change the code to this -

my_code = """
class A(object):
  pass

print 'locals: %s' % locals()
print 'A: %s' % A

class B(A):
  pass
"""

global_env = {}
local_env = {}
my_code_AST = compile(my_code, "My Code", "exec")
exec(my_code_AST, global_env, local_env)

print local_env

then it works fine - giving the following output -

locals: {'A': <class 'A'>}
A: <class 'A'>
{'A': <class 'A'>, 'B': <class 'B'>}

Clearly A is present and accessible - what's going wrong in the first piece of code? I'm using 2.6.5, cheers,

Colin

* UPDATE 1 *

If I check the locals() inside the class -

my_code = """
class A(object):
  pass

print 'locals: %s' % locals()
print 'A: %s' % A

class B(object):
  print locals()
  a_ref = A
"""

global_env = {}
local_env = {}
my_code_AST = compile(my_code, "My Code", "exec")
exec(my_code_AST, global_env, local_env)

print local_env

Then it becomes clear that locals() is not the same in both places -

locals: {'A': <class 'A'>}
A: <class 'A'>
{'__module__': '__builtin__'}
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "python_test.py", line 16, in <module>
    exec(my_code_AST, global_env, local_env)
  File "My Code", line 8, in <module>
  File "My Code", line 10, in B
NameError: name 'A' is not defined

However, if I do this, there is no problem -

def f():
  class A(object):
    pass

  class B(object):
    a_ref = A

f()

print 'Finished OK'

* UPDATE 2 *

ok, so the docs here - http://docs.python.org/reference/executionmodel.html

'A class definition is an executable statement that may use and define names. These references follow the normal rules for name resolution. The namespace of the class definition becomes the attribute dictionary of the class. Names defined at the class scope are not visible in methods.'

It seems to me that 'A' should be made available as a free variable within the executable statement that is the definition of B, and this happens when we call f(), but not when we use exec(). This can be more easily shown with the following -

my_code = """
class A(object):
  pass

print 'locals in body: %s' % locals()
print 'A: %s' % A

def f():
  print 'A in f: %s' % A

f()

class B(object):
  a_ref = A
"""

which outputs

locals in body: {'A': <class 'A'>}
A: <class 'A'>
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "python_test.py", line 20, in <module>
    exec(my_code_AST, global_env, local_env)
  File "My Code", line 11, in <module>
  File "My Code", line 9, in f
NameError: global name 'A' is not defined

So I guess the new question is - why aren't those locals being exposed as free variables in functions and class definitions - it seems like a pretty standard closure scenario.