Python: Using vars() to assign a string to a variable

Question

I find it very useful to be able to create new variables during runtime and create a dictionary of the results for processing later, i.e. writing to a file:

Answer 1

jcdyer explains the concepts very well and Justin Peel clearly states what vars() and locals() do. But a small example always speeds up understanding.

class Bull(object):

    def __init__(self):
        self.x = 1
        self.y = "this"

    def __repr__(self):
        return "Bull()"

    def test1(self):
        z = 5
        return vars()

    def test2(self):
        y = "that"
        return vars(self)

    def test3(self):
        return locals()

    def test4(self):
        y = 1
        return locals()

if __name__ == "__main__":
    b = Bull()
    print b.test1()
    print b.test2()
    print b.test3()
    print b.test4()
    print vars(b).get("y")

Which results in:

{'self': Bull(), 'z': 5}
{'y': 'this', 'x': 1}
{'self': Bull()}
{'y': 1, 'self': Bull()}
this