What is the Python equivalent of static variables inside a function?

Question

What is the idiomatic Python equivalent of this C/C++ code?

void foo()
{
    static int counter = 0;
    counter++;
          


        

Answer 1

_counter = 0
def foo():
   global _counter
   _counter += 1
   print 'counter is', _counter

Python customarily uses underscores to indicate private variables. The only reason in C to declare the static variable inside the function is to hide it outside the function, which is not really idiomatic Python.