Question

In Python, are variable scopes inside if-statements visible outside of the if-statement? (coming from a Java background, so find this a bit odd)

In the following case, name is first defined inside the if-block but the variable is visible outside of the if-block as well. I was expecting an error to occur but ‘joe’ gets printed.

if 1==1:
    name = 'joe'
print(name)

Answer 1

if statements don’t define a scope in Python.

Neither do loops, with statements, try / except, etc.

Only modules, functions and classes define scopes.

See Python Scopes and Namespaces in the Python Tutorial.