Python Programming with the Java™ Class Libraries: A Tutorial for Building Web and Enterprise Applications with Jython

Namespace: dir(), globals(), locals(), vars()

In most languages, the namespace is decided at compile time, and there is no way to determine which variables are in it unless you try to use them and the program doesn't compile. With Python, you can see the variables in the namespace, and you can see what variables a given object exposes.

dir()

dir([object]) returns a list of namespace variables. If no arguments are passed, it returns a list of names in the current namespace; otherwise, it returns a list of an object's attribute names.

Here are two examples of dir() showing what's in the current namespace in a function and in a module, respectively:

 >>> var1, var2, var3, var4 = 1,2,3,4 >>> dir() ['__builtins__', 'var1', 'var2', 'var3', 'var4'] ...