Debugging error: NameError: name 'is_float_digit' is not defined

[rburghol]

This one was tricky. It only occurred after I split utilities_specl into om and state,.

• Generally: this happens when one has 2 code files that both depend on functions within one another.
  • This would probably indicate that code should be broken up into a separate file
• Example 1: om.py and om_model_object.py: model object depends on helper functions from om lib, but the om lib also loads objects and run-time code from model object, thus positioning of import statements in the code are important.
  • Specifically, it occured when calling model_path_loader(model_object_cache), as this triggered a handful of calls to is_float_digit() from within the model object handler classes.
  • is_float_digit() was defined in om.py
  • It was challenging because is_float_digit() was defined in om, and om was imported by every handler class code.
  • The solution:
  • Move the import calls for om class files to after the is_float_digit()` function is defined.
  • This is how things were done (maybe inadvertently) in the old utilities_specl.py file.
  • Since the om handler classes were imported into om.py prior to the creation of the is_float_digit() function, those classes were already loaded, meaning that they would find nothing when looking for this function.
  • This might tell us something about how to separate our helper files. Perhaps the om help functions like is_float_digit() should be in state.py or a separate file?
• Example 2: state.py and om.py
  • Same situation, om lib was imported at top of state.py,
  • om.py used functions from state.py
  • actually, this just was a case of being overly importy, since state.py didn't need functions from om.py

[rburghol]

Had a similar goof up when refactoring specl to include OM: NameError: name 'set_state' is not defined

• set_state() was defined in state.py and referenced in om.py (and other places), but I had the bright idea that I should probably import om.py into state.py at the top of the file, when in reality om.py needed to be imported after all functions that it relied on from state.py.
• lesson learned (again)