Question

Python noob here.
How do I get hold of the ‘inner’ function within the ‘fib’ function?

from time import sleep

class Fibonacci(object):

    def __init__(self, a, b, limit=50):
        self.a = a
        self.b = b
        self.limit = limit

    def fib(self):

        while self.a < self.limit:
            c = self.a + self.b
            sleep(1)
            print self.a,
            self.b = self.a
            self.a = c

        def inner(self):
            print 'Damn it! Just print already!'


j = Fibonacci(0,1,2)
j.fib()

## This doesn't work. Gives an "AttibuteError: 'function' object has no attribute 'inner'"
j.fib.inner()

Answer 1

You cannot, not unless fib returns inner somehow. inner is essentially a local variable inside the scope of fib and you can’t access a function’s locals from outside of it. (That wouldn’t even make sense, since the locals don’t exist except when the function is running. Think about it — would it make sense to access fib‘s c variable from outside of the function?)