Finding the name of a class

[Tim Chase]

>> While this is surely true, would somebody explain why I had such trouble 
>> finding this?
> 
> I think __name__ is an attribute of the class itself, not the instance:

That makes sense, but what doesn't make sense is why, when you do 
a dir(Foo), you don't get '__name__' in the returned list of 
available things Python knows about a Foo.

 >>> class Foo(object):
...     pass
...
 >>> myClass = Foo
 >>> myInstance = Foo()
 >>> # does myClass have a '__name__' attribute?
 >>> '__name__' in dir(myClass)
False
 >>> # that's a negative, buster
 >>> '__name__' in dir(myInstance)
False
 >>> # haha, just kidding, it really did have a __name__
 >>> # proof that dir() isn't showing everything:
 >>> myClass.__name__
'Foo'
 >>> myInstance.__name__
Traceback (most recent call last):
   File "<stdin>", line 1, in ?
AttributeError: 'Foo' object has no attribute '__name__'


It's the

 >>> '__name__' in dir(myClass)
False
 >>> myClass.__name__
'Foo'

that throws me.  What other super-secret tricks have I missed 
because dir() didn't tell me about them?

-a still-confused tkc