Need help running a function in a while loop

Question

So I have function that does some stuff that I need to run: TestRun(x)

I have an array of these that I want to run in a loop, but I need to define them such as df_(x) = TestRun(x). The actual code that I am trying to loop looks like the below:

df_0 = TestRun(0); df_1 = TestRun(1); df_2 = TestRun(2);

I have a few thousand of these and would like to make it simular but need some help to get it to work. Everything I have tried has failed thus far.

I was thinking something like this but it doesn't work:

x = 0
while x < int(5):
    temp = "df_" + str(x) = TestRun(x)
    return temp
    x += 1

It's important that the scrip actually run the function as it loops through.

I think what you want to do is something like this: stackoverflow.com/questions/3061/… There are ways mentioned for calling class methods using string name, individual functions using string name, using dictionary function calls etc — Rusty
– Rusty, Commented Nov 17, 2019 at 4:58
Why do you want a to store the result in a variable? You can always use a dictionary if you just want to save the output of the function. — Subhrajyoti Das
– Subhrajyoti Das, Commented Nov 17, 2019 at 5:08
Did you define the TestRun function yourself? If so, it should be named test_run, no? Can you share more of your code? This is odd and a bit confusing. See: minimal reproducible example. — AMC
– AMC, Commented Nov 17, 2019 at 6:08
I have an array of these that I want to run in a loop... An array of what, exactly? — AMC
– AMC, Commented Nov 17, 2019 at 6:11
1) In python you can't define a variable's name based on a changing variable. So you can't create a variable named df_0 using "df_" + str(x)". You will need to create a dictionary named "dfs" for example, and do dfs[x] = TestRun(x) in the loop. 2) The moment you do return in a function, it ends the function, and the rest of the code (or other iterations of the loop) doesn't commit. So don't write return in the middle of the loop if you want the loop to continue. — Aryerez
– Aryerez, Commented Nov 17, 2019 at 6:13

SK - · Accepted Answer · 2019-11-17 05:17:41Z

1

What I got from the question, it looks like you want to store the result in the dictionary with the function call (not sure why). But here how I will do it.

def testRun(x):
    return x * x


def test_caller():
    x = 0
    func_dict = {}
    while x < int(5):
        func_dict['df_'+str(x)] = testRun(x)
        x += 1
    return func_dict


print(test_caller())

Output : {'df_0': 0, 'df_1': 1, 'df_2': 4, 'df_3': 9, 'df_4': 16}

answered Nov 17, 2019 at 5:17

SK -

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2 Comments

Andrew Hicks Over a year ago

It's a part of a step of a bigger project. I basically want it to run the function for df_0 = TestRun(0) then use a loop to run it for df_1 = TestRun(1) and on and on until a certain number of iterations. But as a part of it, it also is storing df_0 and df_1 for later use.

AMC Over a year ago

@AndrewHicks In that case, couldn’t you just use a list/list comprehension? Index 0 would correspond to df_0, index 1 to df_1, etc.

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