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Python has some special methods available to developers that utilize the double underscore character plus the method name.
Further Reading
- main documentation
[MUSIC]
0:00
Hi, I'm Ken!
0:01
In this workshop,
0:06
we'll talk about using a recommended
Python best practice, dunder main.
0:07
In Python, there are naming
conventions for some special methods
0:12
that utilize the double underscore
character, along with the method name.
0:16
As it gets a little tiresome to say
__method name__, the Python community
0:21
has adopted the name of dunder for
double under to describe these methods.
0:26
I won't be covering all aspects of these
dunder methods in this short workshop,
0:30
but I do want to cover a specific one,
dunder name.
0:36
When you execute a script
using the Python executable
0:40
followed by the name of the script,
it runs all of the code in the file.
0:43
This is usually what you want, but as you
know, Python files can also be imported.
0:47
When that import happens,
it also runs all the code in the file.
0:53
When a script is run, Python sets
the dunder name to equal underscore,
0:57
underscore main or dunder main for
the top level code being executed.
1:01
We can utilize this to our advantage
to check if our script is being
1:06
run versus being imported, and
handling those conditions as needed.
1:10
Lets head into Workspaces
to see an example and
1:15
why it's a best practice
to include in our code.
1:17
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