I'm new with Python and I'm trying to use classes to program using objects as I do with C++.
I wrote 3 .py files.
a.py
from b import *
class A:
def __init__(self):
self.m_tName = "A"
def test(self):
tB = B()
tB.do( self )
b.py
from a import *
class B:
def __init__(self):
self.m_tName = "B"
def do(self, tA ):
if not isinstance( tA, A ):
print ( "invalid parameter" )
print( "OK" )
demo.py:
from a import *
if __name__ == "__main__":
tA = A()
tA.test()
As you can see I want to use a A() object to call the member function test() that creates a B() object and call the member function do() that uses a A() object.
So in B::do() I want to check the parameters using the built-in function isinstance(). But python tells me that there's a NameError: global name 'A' is not defined.
The A() class file is imported at the top of the b.py file.
Does anyone know what I'm doing wrong here ?
As pointed in some comment, circular dependencies are not well handled if imported in the form from a import A
.
In short, the problem with ... import *
is that is causes the local scope to have all its declarations overridden, in effect making the identification of from which module (in your case) a class comes from. This causes exactly what you are facing.
Changing the import
statement in the following way, together with a classified reference to a.A
, produces OK
as output.
import a
class B:
def __init__(self):
self.m_tName = "B"
def do(self, tA ):
print tA
if not isinstance( tA, a.A ):
print ( "invalid parameter" )
print( "OK" )
As a bit of additional information, this has already been discussed in Why is "import *" bad?. I would point in special to this answer: https://stackoverflow.com/a/2454460/1540197.
**Edit:**This article explain the import confusion.
You have a circular dependancy, a.py and b.py import each other.
You could move either import statement inside the method where it is used.
So b.py would become:
class A:
def __init__(self):
self.m_tName = "A"
def test(self):
from b import B
tB = B()
tB.do( self )