How about some syntactic sugar for " __name__ == '__main__' "?

[Steven D'Aprano]

Chris Kaynor wrote:

> I was thinking along the lines of replacing:
> 
> if __name__ == "__main__":
> <<<block of code>>>
> 
> with
> 
> @main
> def myFunction()
> <<<<block of code>>
> 
> Both blocks of code will be called at the same time.


You can't guarantee that, because you cannot tell ahead of time when the "if
__name__" statement will be run. It is *usually* at the end of the file,
but that's just the normal useful convention, it is not a hard requirement.

The current idiom uses normal, unmagical execution of Python code. When the
interpreter reaches the "if __name__ ..." statement, it executes that
statement, just like every other statement. There's no magic involved here,
and in fact I have written code with *multiple* such "if __name__" blocks.
Here's a sketch of the sort of thing I mean:


import a
import b
if __name__ == '__main__':
    import c as d
else:
    import d

def this(): ...
def that(): ...

flag = __name__ == '__main__'
process(flag)

if __name__ == '__main__' or condition():
    print "still executing"
    main()

print "done loading"


(I haven't ever done *all* of these things in a *single* file, but I have
done all these things at one time or another.)

There's no way that any automatic system can match that for flexibility or
simplicity.




-- 
Steven