Assigning values to variables in a list using a loop

Question

var_list = [one, two, three]
num = 1
for var in var_list:
    var = num
    num += 1

The above gives me an error that 'one' doesn't exist. Can you not assign in this way? I want to assign an incrementing number for each var in the list. So I want the equivalent of

one = 1
two = 2
three = 3

but without having to manually create and initialize all variables. How can I do this?

Answer 1

You can access the dictionary of global variables with the globals() built-in function. The dictionary uses strings for keys, which means, you can create variables with names given as strings at run-time, like this:

>>> var_names = ["one", "two", "three"]
>>> count = 1
>>> for name in var_names:
...  globals()[name] = count
...  count += 1
... 
>>> one
1
>>> two
2
>>> three
3
>>> globals()[raw_input()] = 42
answer
>>> answer
42

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