UnboundLocalError variable not recognized

Question

I am getting an error that says: UnboundLocalError: local variable 'words' referenced before assignment but I am unsure on why. The following is my code:

def hasher(fname):
    try:
        with open(fname, 'r') as f:
            words = re.split('(["\'@&,;:\(\)\s+\*\?\.]|\w+)', f.read().lower())
    except:
        print 'Out'

    while '' in words:
        words.remove('')

But I'm getting the error when I try to reference words in the while statement and I'm not sure on why. Any help? Thanks!

In case if an exception occurs then `words` will not be defined, and you'll get error on this line `while '' in words:` — Ashwini Chaudhary, Nov 25 '13 at 10:02

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Nov 25 '13 at 10:06

You need to define a default value,

def hasher(fname):
    words = []
    try:
        with open(fname, 'r') as f:
            words = re.split('(["\'@&,;:\(\)\s+\*\?\.]|\w+)', f.read().lower())
    except:
        print 'Out'

    while '' in words:
        words.remove('')

    return words

UnboundLocalError variable not recognized

1 Answers1