In the Python Guide's chapter on project structure, the term "top-level statement" is brought up a few times. I'm not sure exactly what this refers to. My guess is it's any variable declarations that happen outside of any functions or class methods that fire as soon as a module is loaded. Is this correct? Does it also include a module's import
statements?
Top-level statements enable you to avoid the extra ceremony required by placing your program's entry point in a static method in a class.
There are mainly four types of statements in Python, print statements, Assignment statements, Conditional statements, Looping statements. The print and assignment statements are commonly used.
The __name__ variable (two underscores before and after) is a special Python variable. It gets its value depending on how we execute the containing script. Sometimes you write a script with functions that might be useful in other scripts as well. In Python, you can import that script as a module in another script.
if __name__ == “main”: is used to execute some code only if the file was run directly, and not imported.
It's not just variable declarations (and there aren't any variable declarations anyway). It's pretty much anything that starts at indentation level 0.
import sys # top-level
3 + 4 # top-level
x = 0 # top-level
def f(): # top-level
import os # not top-level!
return 3 # not top-level
if x: # top-level
print 3 # not top-level
else:
print 4 # not top-level, but executes as part of an if statement
# that is top-level
class TopLevel(object): # top-level
x = 3 # not top-level, but executes as part of the class statement
def foo(self): # not top-level, but executes as part of the class statement
print 5 # not top-level
Here's the first mention of "top-level statement":
Once modu.py is found, the Python interpreter will execute the module in an isolated scope. Any top-level statement in modu.py will be executed, including other imports if any. Function and class definitions are stored in the module’s dictionary.
This makes it clear that what they really mean is "things that are interpreted at import
time".
While it's not terribly helpful directly, the Python documentation itself also uses the phrase "top-level" (components, which then means "statements" in this context).
Note that this module:
"""a python module, spam.py"""
def spam():
return "spam"
class Spam(object):
pass
has two statements in it, the def
and the class
. These are both executed at import time. These definitions are compound statements (see def
and class
descriptions). If there are decorators attached to a top-level def
, that adds even more top-level things to run. (See also user2357112's answer: running a class
statement invokes more internal workings.)
Add an import sys
at the top and you've added a third statement, which imports sys
. However, if you add this:
def ham(eggs):
import os
return os.path.basename(eggs)
you have still only added one statement, the def ham
, to the top-level stuff. It's when ham
itself is executed (called) that the import os
will be run.
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