calling a variable by name

[nilamo]

i am trying to implement the changes in the code. I am new at programming objects and classes.

The original question was how to right a function/method to add 2 variables together when only 1 is passed as an argument.

By using "self" to reference the other instance variables in your object.  Here, we create an object, then instantiate it, and call a method of that instance, passing only one argument.  So we do math with two variables, even though we only passed one.

>>> class Spam(object):
...   def __init__(self):
...     self.eggs = 42
...   def add(self, other):
...     return self.eggs + other
...
>>> fork = Spam()
>>> fork.add(9)
51