Load variable from script

Question

I know it is a common question, but I can't find a solution which is similar with mine. I have two program files - a GUI-File (tkinter) and the Main-File, which is feeding the Gui with input.

It works fine until I want to put an OptionMenu into the GUI-File, which is getting the List from the Main-File.

I know that's normally works with:

from GUI-File import variable_from_Main-File

BUT! When I do this the whole file is loaded before the GUI is finished, so variables are just undefined on some points than.

Here is the code for better understanding:

1st the Main-File

import xml.etree.ElementTree as ET
import DLE_Gui as gui

xmlOriginUp = open('%s' %gui.load.Filename, 'r')
xmlOrigin = ET.parse(xmlOriginUp)

elemList    = []
tags        = []

for elem in xmlOrigin.iter():
    elemList.append(elem)

for ta in range(len(elemList)):
    tags.append(elemList[ta].tag)

And the GUI-File:

import tkinter 
from tkinter import filedialog, Tk, Button, LabelFrame, Label, Entry, messagebox, Text, OptionMenu, StringVar
from tkinter.filedialog import askopenfilename
from DLE_v200609 import tags

def fin():
    gui.destroy()

def load():        
    load.Filename = askopenfilename(filetypes=(("XML", "*.xml"),("All files", "*.*")))
    print(load.Filename)    
    Label(text=load.Filename, bg="white", borderwidth=2, relief="sunken").grid(row=1, column=1)


gui = tkinter.Tk()
gui.title('Dante Label XML-Export')


Label(text='Öffnen:').grid(row=1, sticky='w', padx=5, pady=5)
Label(bg="white", borderwidth=2, relief="sunken").grid(row=1, column=1, ipadx=178)
Button(text='dursuchen...', command=load).grid(row=1, column=2, ipadx=5)

Label(text='Label:').grid(row=2, sticky='w', padx=5, pady=5)
var = StringVar(gui)
var.set('---')
optMen = OptionMenu(gui, var, tags)
optMen.grid(row=2, column=1)

Button(text='Schließen', command=fin).grid(row=4, column=2, padx=10, pady=10)

gui.mainloop()

So I want the list 'tags[]' as variable list of the Option Menu in the GUI. The answer of the program is:

xmlOriginUp = open('%s' %gui.load.Filename, 'r')

AttributeError: module 'DLE_Gui' has no attribute 'load'

Has anybody an idea how can I solve it, please?

Answer 1

All your idea with two files seems wrong.

You could put all code in one file to make it simpler.

---

To create tags you have to read file but to get filename you have to display GUI with button which runs load() - but at the same time you try to get filename without displaying GUI and without running load().

You should create GUI with empty OptionMenu as start

 option_menu = tk.OptionMenu(gui, var, '---')

to display it before you load data from file for this OptionMenu

And when you press Button then load() should read file and add items to OptionMenu

for item in xmlOrigin.iter():
    option_menu['menu'].add_command(label=item.tag)

---

Minimal working code

import tkinter as tk
from tkinter.filedialog import askopenfilename
import xml.etree.ElementTree as ET

# --- functions ---

def load():
    filename = askopenfilename(filetypes=(("XML", "*.xml"),("All files", "*.*")))
    print(filename)

    label_filename['text'] = filename

    xmlOriginUp = open(filename)
    xmlOrigin = ET.parse(xmlOriginUp)

    for item in xmlOrigin.iter():
        option_menu['menu'].add_command(label=item.tag)

# --- main ---

gui = tk.Tk()
gui.title('Dante Label XML-Export')

l = tk.Label(text='Öffnen:')
l.grid(row=1, sticky='w', padx=5, pady=5)

label_filename = tk.Label(bg="white", borderwidth=2, relief="sunken")
label_filename.grid(row=1, column=1, ipadx=178)

b = tk.Button(text='dursuchen...', command=load)
b.grid(row=1, column=2, ipadx=5)

l = tk.Label(text='Label:')
l.grid(row=2, sticky='w', padx=5, pady=5)

option_menu_var = tk.StringVar(gui)
option_menu_var.set('---')

option_menu = tk.OptionMenu(gui, option_menu_var, '---') # create empty OptionMenu
option_menu.grid(row=2, column=1)

b = tk.Button(text='Schließen', command=gui.destroy)
b.grid(row=4, column=2, padx=10, pady=10)

gui.mainloop()