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For variables, Python has function scope, module scope, and global scope. Names enter context at the start of a scope (function, module, or global scope), and exit context when a non-nested function is called or the scope ends. If a name is used prior to variable initialization, this raises a runtime exception.
Variable scope in Python is implicitly determined by the scope in which one assigns a value to the variable, unless scope is explicitly declared with global or nonlocal. [ 22 ] Note that the closure's binding of a name to some value is not mutable from within the function.
Immediately invoked function expressions may be written in a number of different ways. [3] A common convention is to enclose the function expression – and optionally its invocation operator – with the grouping operator, [4] in parentheses, to tell the parser explicitly to expect an expression.
The term closure is often used as a synonym for anonymous function, though strictly, an anonymous function is a function literal without a name, while a closure is an instance of a function, a value, whose non-local variables have been bound either to values or to storage locations (depending on the language; see the lexical environment section below).
Some languages allow variable shadowing in more cases than others. For example Kotlin allows an inner variable in a function to shadow a passed argument and a variable in an inner block to shadow another in an outer block, while Java does not allow these. Both languages allow a passed argument to a function/Method to shadow a Class Field. [1]
Provide a private naming scope for variables; Identify variables outside the function that are accessible within it; Propagate an exceptional condition out of a function and to handle it in the calling context; Package functions into a container such as module, library, object, or class
Non-local variables are the primary reason it is difficult to support nested, anonymous, higher-order and thereby first-class functions in a programming language. If the nested function or functions are (mutually) recursive, it becomes hard for the compiler to know exactly where on the call stack the non-local variable was allocated, as the frame pointer only points to the local variable of ...
Variables and scope: Automatic variables: Each local variable in a function comes into existence only when the function is called, and disappears when the function is exited. Such variables are known as automatic variables. External variables: These are variables that are external to a function and can be accessed by name by any function.