How would one create variables in a loop?

Question

I would like to know how to create lots of variables by looping it. I know other people have asked this before but everyone who knows says you need a good reason for it and to just set it in a dictionary. My reason is that I need to assign up to 6156119580207157310796674288400203776 variables and there is no way I can do that by typing them out. I need something like:

while counter < 1000:
    try[counter] = counter

So that I could do this:

>>> try837
837
>>>try453
453

etc.

(this is an example not the exact code but any answer for this will solve my problem)

I would also like to know why people are opposed to answering this particular question. I don't want to tax my computer more than I already am by assigning this many variables so if it is an issue that could harm my computer or my code I would like to know.

You really don't need to assign 6156119580207157310796674288400203776 variables, because you don't have that much memory. — Oliver Charlesworth, Sep 22 '14 at 22:30
And even if you did, there is no conceivable reason not to use an array/list, rather than lots of independent variables. — Oliver Charlesworth, Sep 22 '14 at 22:33
Are you aware of how many bytes are in a gigabyte? Assume for the sake of argument that each variable requires exactly one byte (it is more, but lets keep this simple). Now figure out how many gigabytes you will need for this many variables. — Bryan Oakley, Sep 22 '14 at 22:37
See http://stupidpythonideas.blogspot.com/2013/05/why-you-dont-want-to-dynamically-create.html for more on why this is a stupid idea. — jwodder, Sep 22 '14 at 22:41

chepner · Answer 1 · 2014-09-22T22:46:52.693

3

You don't want to do this. Create a dictionary with a key for each suffix that you would use. Then use try[557] in place of the variable try557.

>>> try_ = dict((counter, counter) for counter in range(1000))
>>> print try_[557]
557

I'm using the standard technique of affixing an underscore to the otherwise reserved word "try".

(I'm ignoring the ludicrously large number of variables you claim to need.)

edited Sep 22 '14 at 22:46

answered Sep 22 '14 at 22:32

chepner

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Note that "`try`" is a Python keyword, so the dictionary will have to be named something else. – jwodder Sep 22 '14 at 22:40
1

I knew something felt weird as I was typing this up. – chepner Sep 22 '14 at 22:43

How would one create variables in a loop?

1 Answers1