strange behavior with cell

It might be an ipython issue or something… but for me it is highly puzzling.

Problem Description

Here is a reproducible example

from math import sqrt

# %% 
# run this cell before the file, it will normally crashed (lack of sqrt)
# then run whole file
# then call in ipython console: foo2(); print(x)
# x is still 1 !!!

def foo1():
  global x
  x=sqrt(1)

def foo2():
  global x
  x=sqrt(4)

foo1()

What steps reproduce the problem?

1. run the cell 1st, will normally crash
2. run the file
3. call in the console: foo2()
4. print(x)

What is the expected output? What do you see instead?

‘x’ should be 2, while ‘x’ is still 1

if one reruns the cell, then now it is fine. It is like there are different namespaces or globals for cells ??? It is weird and sources of crazy bugs. Thanks. I guess I’ve default settings in ‘run’ & ‘python interpreter’.

Versions

• Spyder version: 6.0.0.dev0 48b930506
• Python version: 3.8.9 64-bit
• Qt version: 5.15.2
• PyQt5 version: 5.15.4
• Operating System: Windows 10

[sylvain-bougnoux]

Thanks for these observations & your interest. Yes checking option 2 in ‘run’ does the job. But I am wondering what the opposite (option 2 not checked) means for cells?

My naive understanding of running a cell is: just populate/update the console namespace with the content of the cell; while a file could be seen as a list of cells (with different inputs or knowledge depending on the run option above). If it does something else, it should be stated clearly I guess.

IMHO, there is still a bug when option 2 is unchecked. I’ve found out that even running the file to start with (instead of the cell first) leads to the same problem ; and removing the cell ie ‘# %%’ does not help. It might be due to declaring the variable x from the functions and not from the global namespace ???

But indeed, checking option 2, solves all these experiments, which is even weirder when starting from scratch (because the console is empty anyway!).

Thanks.

[impact27]

Maybe we could simply add a warning when someone runs code in an empty namespace that contains “global”