Why scope matters in Python - See It in Action

Why scope matters

📖 Scenario: Imagine you are organizing a small party. You have a list of guests and a separate list of snacks. You want to count how many guests and snacks you have, but you need to keep these counts separate so they don't get mixed up.

🎯 Goal: You will create two separate counts for guests and snacks using variables inside and outside a function to see how scope affects their values.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a list called guests with exactly these names: 'Alice', 'Bob', 'Charlie'

Create a list called snacks with exactly these items: 'Chips', 'Cookies'

Create a variable called guest_count and set it to 0

Create a function called count_snacks that creates a variable snack_count and sets it to the length of snacks

Inside the function count_snacks, print the value of snack_count

Outside the function, print the value of guest_count

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Understanding scope helps you write programs where different parts do not interfere with each other, like keeping guest and snack counts separate at a party.

💼 Career

Scope is a basic concept in programming that helps prevent bugs and makes code easier to read and maintain, important for all software development jobs.

1

Create the guest and snack lists

Create a list called guests with these exact names: 'Alice', 'Bob', 'Charlie'. Also create a list called snacks with these exact items: 'Chips', 'Cookies'.

Python

# Create the guests and snacks lists
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use square brackets [] to create lists with the exact names and items.

2

Create the guest count variable

Create a variable called guest_count and set it to 0.

Python

guests = ['Alice', 'Bob', 'Charlie']
snacks = ['Chips', 'Cookies']
# Create guest_count variable and set to 0
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use = to assign the number zero to guest_count.

3

Create a function to count snacks

Create a function called count_snacks. Inside it, create a variable called snack_count and set it to the length of the snacks list using len(snacks). Then print the value of snack_count inside the function.

Python

guests = ['Alice', 'Bob', 'Charlie']
snacks = ['Chips', 'Cookies']
guest_count = 0
# Define count_snacks function
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Remember to indent the lines inside the function.

4

Print guest count and call snack count function

Call the function count_snacks(). Then print the value of guest_count outside the function.

Python

guests = ['Alice', 'Bob', 'Charlie']
snacks = ['Chips', 'Cookies']
guest_count = 0
def count_snacks():
    snack_count = len(snacks)
    print(snack_count)
# Call count_snacks function
# Print guest_count
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Call the function by writing its name followed by parentheses. Use print(guest_count) to show the guest count.