Python NameError The class of the name is not defined but it actually is

Question

I was playing with classes and I thought to create a class called Container which is meant to group all things that can hold other things.

# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-

class Container(object):
    def __init__(self, name, volume):
        self.name = name
        self.max_volume = volume

hands = Container('HANDS', 2)

I started from this point and then I wanted to test if everything was ok but if in the python console I call hands.name it says that hands is not defined. This happens when I import it as a module too.

I don't get what I am doint wrong! Can you please explain me how to make it work?

I get from the python console:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
NameError: name 'hands' is not defined

Answer 1

Assuming this is the container.py file:

# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-

class Container(object):
    def __init__(self, name, volume):
        self.name = name
        self.max_volume = volume

hands = Container('HANDS', 2)

and this is your execution command in the interpreter:

>>> import container

Then, the hands instance is accessible in the following manner:

>>> container.hands.name

To avoid the container prefix, you can also do this:

>>> from container import hands
>>> hands.name