As a multi-statement program makes progress from launch to completion, it does so by undergoing changes of state. The state of our program as a whole is the state of all of the program's variables. When one variable changes, the overall state has changed.

Variables are the names your program assigns to the results of an expression. Every variable is created with an initial value. Variables will change to identify new objects and the objects identified by a variable can change their internal state. These three kinds of state changes (variable creation, object assignment, object change) happen as inputs are accepted and our program evaluates expressions. Eventually the state of the variables indicates that we are done, and our program can exit.

A Python variable name must be at least one letter, and can have a string of numbers, letters and _'s to any length. Names that start with _ or __ have special significance. Names that begin with _ are typically private to a module or class. We'll return to this notion of privacy in Chapter 21, Classes and Chapter 28, Modules . Names that begin with __ are part of the way the Python interpreter is built.

Example variable names include a, pi, aVeryLongName, a_name, __str__ and _hidden.

Python creates new objects as the result of evaluating an expression. Python creates new variables with an assignment statement; it also assigns an object to the variable. Python removes variables with a del statement.

Some Consequences. A Python variable is little more than a name which refers to an object. The central issue is to recognize that the underlying object is the essential part of our program; a variable name is just a meaningful label. This has a number of important consequences.

One consequence of a variable being simple a label is that any number of variables can refer to the same object. In other languages (C, C++, Java) there are two kinds of values: primitive and objects, and there are distinct rules for handling the two kinds of values. In Python, every variable is a simple reference to an underlying object. When talking about simple immutable objects, like the number 3, multiple variables referring to a common object is functionally equivalent to having a distinct copy of a primitive value. When talking about mutable objects, like lists, mappings, or complex objects, distinct variable references can change the state of the common object.

Another consequences is that the Python object fully defines it's own type. The object's type defines the representation, the range of values and the allowed operations on the object. The type is established when the object is created. For example, floating point addition and long integer objects have different representations, operations of adding these kinds of numbers are different, the objects created by addition are of distinct types. Python uses the type information to choose which addition operation to perform on two values. In the case of an expression with mixed types Python uses the type information to coerce one or both values to a common type.

We've already worked with the four numeric types: plain integers, long integers, floating point numbers and complex numbers. We've touched on the string type, also. There are several other built-in types that we will look at in detail in Part II, “Data Structures”. Plus, we can use class definitions to define new types to Python, something we'll look at in Part III, “Data + Processing = Objects”.

Note that a static language associates the type information with the variable. Only values of a certain type can be assigned to a given variable. In Python, a variable is just a label or tag attached to the object. Any variable can be associated with a value of any type.

The final consequence of variables referring to objects is that a variable's scope can be independent of the object itself. This means that a variables which are in distinct namespaces can refer to the same object. When a function completes execution and the namespace is deleted, the variables are deleted, and the number of variables referring to an object is reduced. Additional variables may still refer to an object, meaning that the object will continue to exist. When only one variable refers to an object, then removing the last variable removes the last reference to the object, and the object can be removed from memory.

Also note that a expressions generally create new objects; if an object is not saved in a variable, it silently vanishes. We can safely ignore the results of a function.

Scope and Namespaces. A Python variable is a name which refers to an object. To be useful, each variable must have a scope of visibility. The scope is defined as the set of statements that can make use of this variable. A variable with global scope can be referenced anywhere. On the other hand, variable with local scope can only be referenced in a limited suite of statements.

This notion of scope is essential to being able to keep a intellectual grip on a program. Programs of even moderate complexity need to keep pools of variables with separate scopes. This allows you to reuse variable names without risk of confusion from inadvertantly changing the value of a variable used elsewhere in a program.

Python collects variables into pools called namespaces. A new namespace is created as part of evaluating the body of a function or module, or creating a new object. Additionally, there is one global namespace. This means that each variable (and the state that it implies) is isolated to the execution of a single function or module. By separating all locally scoped variables into separate namespaces, we don't have an endless clutter of global variables.

In the rare case that you need a global variable, the global statement is available to assign a variable to the global namespace.

When we introduce functions in Chapter 9, Functions , classes in Chapter 21, Classes and modules in Part IV, “Components, Modules and Packages”, we'll revisit this namespace technique for managing scope. In particular, see the section called “Functions and Namespaces” for a digression on this.