Question

I was wondering if it is possible to create a function foo in python so that

def calulate (self, input):
    input = #some stuff

def foo2(self):
    self.calculate(self.var1)
    self.calculate(self.var2)

or do you have to do this

def calculation(self):
    output=#some stuff
    return output
def foovar1(self):
    self.var1=self.calculation()
    self.var2=self.calculation()

I really don’t want to have to do this because it would mean creating many more functions

Answer 1

In Python, you can mutate function arguments, but you can’t rebind them in the caller’s scope directly. You could pass the instance member name:

def foo(self, inputname):
    setattr(self, inputname, #some stuff)

def foo2(self):
    self.foo('var1')
    self.foo('var2')

Alternately, if self.var1 is a mutable object e.g. a list you could write:

def foo (self, input):
    input[:] = #some stuff

def foo2(self):
    self.foo(self.var1)
    self.foo(self.var2)

This works because you’re mutating the list object (by assigning to a full slice) rather than rebinding it (a bare =).