I've tried looking at a few different examples, but I'm not really sure why this isn't working. Say I've some code like this:

def loadVariable():
    global count
    count = 0

def loadDictionary():
    location = 'some location'
    global myDict
    myDict = pickle.load(open(location, 'rb'))

def main():
    loadVariable()
    loadDictionary()
    for item in myDict:
        if item.startswith("rt"):
            count += 1
            item = item[3:]

if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()

To my eyes, the if statement is executed which starts the main() method. Then, the variable which is global is loaded, the dictionary is loaded and the for loop is executed.

However, when I run the code I am told that the local variable count is referenced before its assignment. Why is that happening?

I've tried looking at a few different examples, but I'm not really sure why this isn't working. Say I've some code like this:

def loadVariable():
    global count
    count = 0

def loadDictionary():
    location = 'some location'
    global myDict
    myDict = pickle.load(open(location, 'rb'))

def main():
    loadVariable()
    loadDictionary()
    for item in myDict:
        if item.startswith("rt"):
            count += 1
            item = item[3:]

if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()

To my eyes, the if statement is executed which starts the main() method. Then, the variable which is global is loaded, the dictionary is loaded and the for loop is executed.

However, when I run the code I am told that the local variable count is referenced before its assignment. Why is that happening?

Edit (Explaining some of the things I've written in comments):

This doesn't work (although I think that's because global is used wrong here):

global count

def loadVariables()
    count = 0

def main():
    loadVariables()
    rest of code etc

This doesn't work either:

def loadVariables()
    count = 0

def main():
    global count
    loadVariables()
    rest of code etc

The only way thus far I've gotten it to work is using the link provided above, which is to treat the count as a list, like so:

def loadVariables():
    global count
    count = [0]

def main():
    loadVariables():
    rest of code etc
        count[0] += 1