Help with basic Python function

Question

I have a function to connect to a database. This code works:

def connect():
 return MySQLdb.connect("example.com", "username", "password", "database")

But this doesn't:

def connect():
 host = "example.com"
 user = "username"
 pass = "password"
 base = "database"
 return MySQLdb.connect(host, user, pass, base)

Why so?

• djangofan: up vote for using the "beginner" tag.

Answer 1

pass is a reserved keyword.

Pick different variable names and your code should work fine.
Maybe something like:

def connect():
 _host = "example.com"
 _user = "username"
 _pass = "password"
 _base = "database"
 return MySQLdb.connect(_host, _user, _pass, _base)

• user114060: Haha, didn't realize. Thanks!
• Jon W: Ah, got tripped up by syntax highlighting. Corrected.
• Bastien Léonard: the convention is to append _ to the keyword. When you prepend, it means it's a private variable.
• Jon W: @Bastien True. Considering the placement of the vars, I assumed private.