What is the purpose of __name__?

Question

What does __name__ do? I have only seen it paired with __main__ and nothing else.

I know that the classic if __name__ == __main__: defines the behavior when acting as a package vs running as stand-alone.

However what other usages are there for __name__?

Answer 1

__name__ is "__main__" if you're executing the script directly. If you're importing a module, __name__ is the name of the module.

foo.py:

print(__name__)

bar.py

import foo

Run the scripts:

$ python foo.py
__main__
$ python bar.py 
foo