return statement doesnt return anything in python recursion

Question

The methods below look in a string to find if it has any python methods.

def there_is_a_call( string ): 
    return string.find(\'(\') > -1

def find_and_rem         


        

Answer 1

Here:

find_and_remove_functions( string[ function_end + 1: ], found_functions )

should be

return find_and_remove_functions( string[ function_end + 1: ], found_functions )

Answer 2

Some more explanation here.

a = find_and_remove_functions( 'func() and some more()' , [] ) prints a list because there is a line print( found_functions ) being executed.

a is assigned to the result of find_and_remove_functions and, since the function returns nothing after the set of recursive calls (see your else part doesn't have a return), it is assigned to None.

Here's a simple example of what is happening:

>>> def test():
...     print "test"
... 
>>> a = test()
test
>>> print(a)
None
>>> a is None
True