When the name `a` is assigned the value of `baz`, Python is setting a key name `a` in the local dictionary (hash table) `locals()`.

Basically `a = 1` is syntactic sugar for `locals()['a'] = 1`

  >>> a
  Traceback (most recent call last):
    File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
  NameError: name 'a' is not defined
  >>> locals()['a'] = 113
  >>> a
  113
  >>>

One interesting side-effect of this is you can assign names that are not valid Python syntax explicitly.

For example:

  >>> locals()['foo-bar'] = 1
  >>> locals()['foo-bar']
  1
  >>> foo-bar
  Traceback (most recent call last):
    File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
  NameError: name 'foo' is not defined
  >>> 

The name `foo-bar` can't be literally referenced, because the interpreter attempts to interpret it as the subtraction operation `foo - bar`.

This only works in global scope. It won't work in a function:

    def f():
        a = 5
        locals()['a'] = 6
        print(a) # 5

Inside a function, accesses/writes of locals use an internal array of local variables, to skip dicts. Same with constants. See:

https://github.com/python/cpython/blob/master/Python/ceval.c...

locals() is presented to the user as a dictionary, but is that the way cpython actually works with it internally? I've run into weird GC issues that imply it's not a normal dictionary and it's just presented to the user as one for programattic access.

No, that's not how it works internally. The Python compiler resolves all local variables at compile-time. You can see this for yourself by defining a simple function f, import dis, and calling dis.dis(f).

Global variables use a dictionary, however. The disassembly actually looks similar for both.

That's a good question, I'm pretty sure it's not a normal dictionary. However, I'd have to go through the CPython source to confirm. Maybe someone who's more familiar with CPython's implementation will chime in.

It's easier if you look at the bytecode produced for the expression, which is:

    1           0 LOAD_NAME                0 (foo)
                2 LOAD_ATTR                1 (bar)
                4 LOAD_ATTR                2 (baz)
                6 STORE_NAME               3 (a)
                8 LOAD_CONST               0 (None)
               10 RETURN_VALUE

The CPython implementation is a stack-based virtual machine. The first instruction here, LOAD_NAME, pushes co_names['foo'] (basically, whatever 'foo' is bound to in local scope) to the top of the stack. That's at least one hash table lookup, since the scope is a hash table mapping names to values. Then LOAD_ATTR replaces the top-of-stack value with the value of its 'bar' attribute. That's another hash table lookup, since attributes are a hash table mapping names to values. Then another LOAD_ATTR to get to 'baz', that's another hash table lookup. Then STORE_NAME binds the value at the top of the stack to the name given as an argument ('a'). That's an insert or update of a hash table.

So, the expression 'a = foo.bar.baz' involves at least three hash table lookups and one insert or update.

Since Python is an interpreter, it keeps a dictionary/hash table of the local and global variables. These can be accesses by the functions `locals()` and `globals()`.

`a = ... ` can be thought of as `locals()["a"] = ...`

(although you can should not actually modify the local variables this way)