Locals is a fundamental component of albatross.  It is core for communicating to and from templates.  Unfortunately, understanding attributes is sometimes a little counterintuitive.  This section will try to cover general concepts about locals but then lead you to sections dealing with specific examples.

== locals ==

Locals is simply an empty class definition:
{{{
    class Vars:
        pass
    ...
    ctx.locals = Vars()
}}}
This empty class definition is simply a framework onto which one can impose application-specific data.  Attributes are a standard feature of python.  They are used all the time but we just don't think of them as attributes.  For example:
{{{
    v = Vars()
    v.my_name = 'Matt'
}}}
This is perfectly valid and fairly normal in Python. After all, you
don't have to define instance attributes, you just say
`self.my_name = 'Matt'`.


Parent: PuzzledAboutBitsAndPieces