Source.Python forums

I'm just learning python and I decided to take a beginners online quiz to test myself. One of the questions was this:

8. What is the output of the following code?

A. py
B. yn
C. pyn
D. yna

Because of the slice() function the anwer is B. But that's not my question. I thought it was odd that they used "str" as a variable. I wasn't even aware that you could use a built-in function as a variable. I would have thought that at a minimum this is poor coding practice. Am I missing something here?

Yes, you could use it as a variable name, but you should avoid it as it's not good practice. Since you overwrote it you will have problems actually calling the original str built-in, which will result into errors. There are possibilities to restore it, but it's better to not call your variable like that in the first place.

Ok, thanks for the clarification Ayuto. That's kind of what I figured.