Reason for globals() in Python?

Question

What is the reason of having globals() function in Python? It only returns dictionary of global variables, which are already global, so they can be used anywhere... I\'m ask

Answer 1

globals() is useful for eval() -- if you want to evaluate some code that refers to variables in scope, those variables will either be in globals or locals.

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To expand a bit, the eval() builtin function will interpret a string of Python code given to it. The signature is: eval(codeString, globals, locals), and you would use it like so:

def foo():
    x = 2
    y = eval("x + 1", globals(), locals())
    print("y=" + y) # should be 3

This works, because the interpreter gets the value of x from the locals() dict of variables. You can of course supply your own dict of variables to eval.