Python in a Nutshell

Chapter 13. Controlling Execution

Python directly exposes many of the mechanisms it uses internally. This helps you understand Python at an advanced level, and means you can hook your own code into such documented Python mechanisms and control those mechanisms to some extent. For example, Chapter 7 covered the import statement and the way Python arranges for built-ins to be made implicitly visible. This chapter covers other advanced techniques that Python offers for controlling execution, while Chapter 17 covers execution-control possibilities that apply specifically to the three crucial phases of development: testing, debugging, and profiling.

Dynamic Execution and the exec Statement

With Python’s exec statement, it is possible to execute code that you read, generate, or otherwise obtain during the running of a program. The exec statement dynamically executes a statement or a suite of statements. exec is a simple keyword statement with the following syntax:

exec code[ in globals[,locals]]

code can be a string, an open file-like object, or a code object. globals and locals are dictionaries. If both are present, they are the global and local namespaces, respectively, in which code executes. If only globals is present, exec uses globals in the role of both namespaces. If neither globals nor locals is present, code executes in the current scope. Running exec in current scope is not good programming practice, since it can bind, rebind, or unbind any name. To keep things under control, ...