>>> variables = {'a': 6, 'b': 7}
>>> eval('a * b', globals=variables)
42
As a plus, with this the code cannot accidentally refer to the names defined outside:
>>> eval('variables')
{'a': 6, 'b': 7}
>>> eval('variables', globals=variables)
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
File "<string>", line 1, in <module>
NameError: name 'variables' is not defined
Using defaultdict
allows for example having undefined variables set to zero:
>>> from collections import defaultdict
>>> variables = defaultdict(int, {'a': 42})
>>> eval('a * c', globals=variables) # note that 'c' is not explicitly defined
0