some questions unanswered - new programmer ...

[Terry Reedy]

"whats_really_hot" <whats_really_hot at hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:9khc3c$qje$1 at usenet.otenet.gr...
> 1. The interactive command line is really a module with the name
"__main__".

ie, the variable named '__name__' has the value  '__main__'

>. So, why when I type dir() in
> the interactive command line "__name__" is returned in spite of
"__main__",

For the same reason that if you enter a='b', dir lists the name a
rather than the value 'b'.

> 2. What does the command "cat" do? I suspect that it begins the
creation of
> a new module, right?

cat is unix command that concatenates files and lists to standard
output (usually screen).

Terry J. Reedy