Declare persistent variables?

[mitoky]

Hello!

I know persistent variables when not decalred, default to None. So i usually had never declared them until recently. But i see here and there people do it and then again some not. I assume both is ok to do, but i wonder what is better?

Declare persistent variables or not?

[mikolajspy]

I'm not programming expert, but in most languages it's better to properly declare any variable that you're going to use globally.
I believe it matters especially when you use persistent in some True/False check or as a counter.

[kivik]

Personally I see each persistent variable having 3 states:

None: Player never hit the code that sets the variable
True: Player hit the code that sets the variable once
False: Player has hit the code at some point, but it's been reset to False

You'd test the 3 states by:

Code: Select all

if persistent.var:
    "True"
elif persistent.var is None:
    "None"
else:
    "False"

If you're not interested in the None state, then just ditch the is None statement.