Document that locals() may return globals()

[stevendaprano]

BPO	32413
Nosy	@brettcannon, @rhettinger, @stevendaprano, @vadmium, @srinivasreddy, @miss-islington
PRs	bpo-32413: Add documentation that at the module level, locals(), globals() are the same dictionary #5004 [3.7] bpo-32413: Add documentation that at the module level, locals(), globals() are the same dictionary (GH-5004) #12664

^{Note: these values reflect the state of the issue at the time it was migrated and might not reflect the current state.}

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GitHub fields:

assignee = None
closed_at = <Date 2019-04-02.18:15:54.835>
created_at = <Date 2017-12-23.05:52:42.322>
labels = ['3.8', 'type-feature', '3.7', 'docs']
title = 'Document that locals() may return globals()'
updated_at = <Date 2019-04-02.18:15:54.834>
user = 'https://github.com/stevendaprano'

bugs.python.org fields:

activity = <Date 2019-04-02.18:15:54.834>
actor = 'brett.cannon'
assignee = 'docs@python'
closed = True
closed_date = <Date 2019-04-02.18:15:54.835>
closer = 'brett.cannon'
components = ['Documentation']
creation = <Date 2017-12-23.05:52:42.322>
creator = 'steven.daprano'
dependencies = []
files = []
hgrepos = []
issue_num = 32413
keywords = ['patch']
message_count = 5.0
messages = ['308947', '308949', '309004', '309391', '339359']
nosy_count = 7.0
nosy_names = ['brett.cannon', 'rhettinger', 'steven.daprano', 'docs@python', 'martin.panter', 'thatiparthy', 'miss-islington']
pr_nums = ['5004', '12664']
priority = 'normal'
resolution = 'fixed'
stage = 'resolved'
status = 'closed'
superseder = None
type = 'enhancement'
url = 'https://bugs.python.org/issue32413'
versions = ['Python 2.7', 'Python 3.4', 'Python 3.5', 'Python 3.6', 'Python 3.7', 'Python 3.8']

[stevendaprano]

The obvious documentation for locals() fails to mention that when called from the top level of a module (outside of a function or class body) it returns the same dict as globals().

https://docs.python.org/2/library/functions.html#locals

[rhettinger]

FWIW, this isn't a quirk of how locals() works. Instead, it reflects the more interesting reality that at the top level, locals and globals *are* the same dictionary. Also, that is not the only occurrence -- if exec() is called with only one dictionary, that dict is used for both locals and globals.

[srinivasreddy]

Done. exec(...)'s documentation covers raymond's comment.

[vadmium]

FWIW a few years ago I wrote a patch for bpo-17546 that documents three personalities of “locals”, including:

• At the module level, the dictionary returned is the global symbol table, also returned by :func:`globals`.

[miss-islington]

New changeset ef516d1 by Miss Islington (bot) in branch '3.7':
bpo-32413: Add documentation that at the module level, locals(), globals() are the same dictionary (GH-5004)
ef516d1