Question

I have built a function to create a dictionary and return it. This function is called get_values, and is structured as follows:

def initiate_values(directory):
    for file in glob.glob(os.path.join(directory, '*.[xX][lL][sS]')):
        title = os.path.basename(file).lower()
        if title == 'etc.xls':
            wb = xlrd.open_workbook(file)
            wb = wb.sheet_by_name(u'Sheet1')
            get_values(file, wb)    

def get_values():
    info_from_etc = dict()
    # build dict
    return info_from_etc    

It works, in that it creates the dictionary and then when I try and print it, it prints the correct values. However, when I try and call this get_values function from another function, the dictionary returns as “None”. This is my function to call get_values –

def packager():
    info_from_etc = initiate_values()
    print info_from_etc # this prints "None"

What am I doing incorrectly here, and how would I return the proper dictionary here — that is, a dictionary that is not None.

Answer 1

You need to return the dictionary from initiate_values:

def initiate_values(directory):
    for file in glob.glob(os.path.join(directory, '*.[xX][lL][sS]')):
        title = os.path.basename(file).lower()
        if title == 'etc.xls':
            wb = xlrd.open_workbook(file)
            wb = wb.sheet_by_name(u'Sheet1')
            return get_values(file, wb)  # added `return'
    return {} # or some other value