12.3. Namespaces

A namespace is a mapping of names (identifiers) to objects. The process of adding a name to a namespace consists of binding the identifier to the object (and increasing the reference count to the object by one). The Python Language Reference also includes the following definitions: “changing the mapping of a name is called rebinding[, and] removing a name is unbinding.

As briefly introduced in the last chapter, there are either two or three active namespaces at any given time during execution. These three namespaces are the local, global, and built-ins namespaces, but local namespaces come and go during execution, hence the “two or three” we just alluded to. The names accessible from these namespaces as dependent on their ...

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