Use of “global” keyword in Python

Question

What I understand from reading the documentation is that Python has a separate namespace for functions, and if I want to use a global variable in that function, I need to us

Answer 1

Accessing a name and assigning a name are different. In your case, you are just accessing a name.

If you assign to a variable within a function, that variable is assumed to be local unless you declare it global. In the absence of that, it is assumed to be global.

>>> x = 1         # global 
>>> def foo():
        print x       # accessing it, it is global

>>> foo()
1
>>> def foo():   
        x = 2        # local x
        print x 

>>> x            # global x
1
>>> foo()        # prints local x
2