title: creating variables from external data in python script
body: <p>I want to read an external data source (excel) and create variables containing the data.  Suppose the data is in columns and each column has a header with the variable name.</p>
  
  <p>My first idea is to write a function so i can easily reuse it.  Also, I could easily give some additional keyword arguments to make the function more versatile.</p>
  
  <p>The problem I'm facing is that I want to refer to the data in python (interactively) via the variable names.  I don't know how to do that (with a function).  The only solution I see is returning the variable names and the  data from my function (eg as lists), and do something like this:</p>
  
  <pre><code>def get_data()
      (...)
      return names, values
  
  names, values = get_data(my_excel)
  
  for n,v in zip(names, values):
      exec(''.join([n, '= v']))
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Can I get the same result directly?
  Thanks,
  Roel</p>