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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.
Python's syntax, though, sometimes leads programmers of other languages to think that closures are not supported. 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]
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).
In computer programming, variable shadowing occurs when a variable declared within a certain scope (decision block, method, or inner class) has the same name as a variable declared in an outer scope. At the level of identifiers (names, rather than variables), this is known as name masking .
The scope of a variable affects its extent. The scope of a variable is actually a property of the name of the variable, and the extent is a property of the storage location of the variable. These should not be confused with context (also called environment), which is a property of the program, and varies by point in the program's text or ...
An identifier I' (for variable X') masks an identifier I (for variable X) when two conditions are met I' has the same name as I; I' is defined in a scope which is a subset of the scope of I; The outer variable X is said to be shadowed by the inner variable X'. For example, the parameter "foo" shadows the local variable "foo" in this common pattern:
In Python, if a name is intended to be "private", it is prefixed by one or two underscores. Private variables are enforced in Python only by convention. Names can also be suffixed with an underscore to prevent conflict with Python keywords. Prefixing with double underscores changes behaviour in classes with regard to name mangling.
In many languages, the scope resolution operator is written ::. In some languages, notably those influenced by Modula-3 (including Python and Go), modules are objects, and scope resolution within modules is a special case of usual object member access, so the usual method operator . is used for scope resolution.