Question

I ran the code below, by calling the function in the constructor

First —

>>> class PrintName:
...    def __init__(self, value):
...      self._value = value
...      printName(self._value)
...    def printName(self, value):
...      for c in value:
...        print c
...
>>> o = PrintName('Chaitanya')
C
h
a
i
t
a
n
y
a

---

Once again I run this and I get this

>>> class PrintName:
...    def __init__(self, value):
...      self._value = value
...      printName(self._value)
...    def printName(self, value):
...      for c in value:
...        print c
...
>>> o = PrintName('Hello')
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
  File "<stdin>", line 4, in __init__
NameError: global name 'printName' is not defined

Can I not call a function in the constructor? and whay a deviation in the execution of similar code?

Note: I forgot to call a function local to the class, by using self (ex: self.printName()). Apologize for the post.

Answer 1

You need to call self.printName since your function is a method belonging to the PrintName class.

Or, since your printname function doesn’t need to rely on object state, you could just make it a module level function.

class PrintName:
    def __init__(self, value):
        self._value = value
        printName(self._value)

def printName(value):
    for c in value:
    print c