Question

Suppose I have a global variable a. And within a function definition, we also have a local variable named a. Is there any way to assign the value of the global variable to that of the local variable?

a = 'foo'

def my_func(a = 'bar'):
    # how to set global a to value of the local a?

Answer 1

Use built-in function globals().

globals()

Return a dictionary representing the current global symbol
table. This is always the dictionary of the current module (inside a
function or method, this is the module where it is defined, not the
module from which it is called).

a = 'foo'

def my_func(a = 'bar'):
    globals()['a'] = a

BTW, it’s worth mentioning that a global is only “global” within the scope of a module.