Let’s say we have our function from the last exercise that creates a string about a special item:

def create_special_string(special_item):
  return "Our special is " + special_item + "."

What if we wanted to access the variable special_item outside of the function? Could we use it?

def create_special_string(special_item):
  return "Our special is " + special_item + "."

print("I don't like " + special_item)

If we try to run this code, we will get a NameError, telling us that 'special_item' is not defined. The variable special_item has only been defined inside the space of a function, so it does not exist outside the function. We call the part of a program where special_item can be accessed its scope. The scope of special_item is only the create_special_string function.

Variables defined outside the scope of a function may be accessible inside the body of the function:

header_string = "Our special is " 

def create_special_string(special_item):
  return header_string + special_item + "."
print(create_special_string("grapes"))

There is no error here. header_string can be used inside the create_special_string function because the scope of header_string is the whole file. This file would produce:

Our special is grapes.